April 2025: Ms. Schwarz will lead a session entitled, “Your Path to Scholarly Success: Strategies for Research and Publication for JA & ACCME Commendation Criteria” on April 25, 2025 during the ACCME Learn to Thrive Annual Meeting. The session provides a step-by-step framework for turning ideas into impactful research and highlights publication opportunities for CE professionals. By the end, participants will be equipped with the tools and motivation to engage in meaningful scholarship and make lasting contributions to CE.
Adding Value to Your CME Program: ABIM Part 2 MOC Credits
CME Providers: Add ABIM Part 2 MOC Credits to Your Program Now
You are already providing high quality medical education to your physician learners. You can now help learners even more by providing required American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) medical knowledge points.
The ABIM requires physicians to obtain 20 medical knowledge points every five years, and must complete at least one MOC activity every two years. Your activities can be adapted to satisfy this requirement.
Over 200,000 physicians in the United States are Board Certified by the ABIM, including internal medicine physicians, and specialists in endocrinology, rheumatology, cardiology, infectious disease, gastroenterology, critical care, medical oncology, and more.
Help your physicians fulfill their requirements by adding ABIM Part 2 MOC credits to your CME program.
Recently, the ABIM have revised requirements so that accredited CME providers may offer education that is eligible for MOC points. This opportunity adds tremendous value to your CME program.Â
All regulatory changes require a modified approach to compliance, but the ABIM and ACCME/IMQ have collaborated to minimize the impact upon providers. You probably do not need to make very many changes to the excellent education you are already offering. At the recent IMQ Provider Conference, the ACCME CEO, Dr. Graham McMahon encouraged CME providers to consider adding ABIM Part 2 MOC to their program.
If this will add value to your activities and your organization in the eyes of attendees, but you are not sure how to make this happen, Vivacity Consulting can help. We are seasoned CME professionals with extensive experience working with hospitals, health systems, specialty societies and medical education companies.
Please contact us to learn about our pricing structure. We will assess your program, help you edit your documentation, recommend process improvements, and assist with reporting requirements.
If you are ready to give physicians the credit they deserve for the education you are already providing, contact Vivacity Consulting to help.
You might be interested in the following post as well, entitled, “Who Me, Provide MOC?”
Interactive CME proven more effective
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Quality Improvement (QI) and Me
Stretch Assignment: 5 toe touches and a QI Initiative
We CME professionals often go about our day, working feverishly to ensure compliance for upcoming events and to finish the file for completed events. We all know that there is change brewing in healthcare, but if we have a chance to think about the big picture, it may not include the idea that quality improvement (QI) is in our wheelhouse. Well, some have suggested IF NOT US, THEN WHO?!Â
Remember: the ACCME/IMQ requirements are not just rules we have to follow. They are designed to facilitate the planning of education which will enable/inspire physicians to do their jobs better.
During a recent webinar regarding the ACEhp’s Education Initiative, Jack Kues defined quality improvement as the process by which current practice is moved towards best practice. Isn’t that what we CME professionals do all day, every day?
In the same webinar, Robin King stated that we need to remember to help practitioners implement best practices in their practice setting if we are going to initiate any change. This is our stretch assignment, because although we think about barriers to implementation, how many of us actively plan to address these barriers? We still buy-in to Francis Bacon’s statement that knowledge is power. (He was an Elizabethan from the 17th century. We now know it takes more than knowledge to change behavior.)Â
As we CME professionals take ownership of this QI issue, or at least, an appropriate portion of the ownership, we can be part of the change. I’m ready. Are you?
CME Consultant Musings: If I Ruled the World
Caution: CME Consultant at Work
If I ruled the world, educational activity objectives would be measurable every time. The word “understand” would be outlawed.
If I ruled the world, disclosure forms would be turned in 2 weeks BEFORE the deadline, completely filled out, signed and dated.
If I ruled the world, all of my activity data would batch upload into PARS at the ACCME the first time.
If I ruled the world, hospital IT departments would seamlessly allow emails about upcoming CME activities to flow, and would allow CME staff to participate in webinars using any webinar software the vendor suggests.
If I ruled the world, every ACCME Progress Report and IMQ Interim Report issued would also come with a box of See’s Candy dark chocolate covered mint patties. (That’s only fair.)
If I ruled the world, every Quality Department in the hospital would talk to the staff in the Medical Education office and figure out how they could help each other reach their goals.
If I ruled the world, the public would understand that continuing medical education is NOT a vehicle to get more money into doctor’s pockets but instead the best possible way to ensure health professionals are providing best-practice, evidence-based care to them and their loved ones.
Whoops, there’s that word understand. I guess I would outlaw that word for everyone but me, if I ruled the world!
(Musing:Â A product of contemplation; a thought.)
Using Data to Improve Medical Education
A Case-Study: Using Data From Participant Evaluations
When the ACCME came out with the new Criteria (back in the 2000s!), many of us from  non-hospital-based organizations struggled to understand how to incorporate the concept of using data into our planning process. I remember whining a lot. “We’re a specialty society. We don’t have patient data!”  Not only that but, “we only see our attendees one time a year!”
Flash forward 7 years. The SAGES Continuing Medical Education Committee is pleased to announce the publication of the article entitled, “Evolution of practice gaps in gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgery: 2012 report from the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) Continuing Education Committee.” In this article, we describe the process by which we have collected data from our attendees through post-activity surveys, analyzed this data by “Learning Themes,” and then identified potential practice gaps which have or may be addressed at future educational activities.
If you have a subscription, you can access the article here:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00464-013-3263-2
I just read that some journal publishers are getting tougher about copyright violations, so message me if you would like me to send you a “draft” version of the paper. I’ll present a summary of this work during CMEPALOOZA, a web-conference being held March 20, 2014.
And congrats to my co-authors who did the bulk of the data work,
- John T. Paige, MD
- Timothy M. Farrell, MD
- Simon Bergman, MD
- Niazy Selim, MD
- Alan E. Harzman, MD
- Yumi Hori,
- Jason Levine,
- Daniel J. Scott, MD
Turns out specialty societies actually do have the ability to collect valuable data, and there are ways of using this data to, dare I say, improve the education delivered.