Highlights from October 2012 Committee on Continuing Education Meeting
At its October 2012 meeting, the Committee on Continuing Education awarded Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) in Houston Accreditation with Commendation, which confers a 6-year term of accreditation. Congratulations to TCH! The committee also awarded accreditation to four organizations and reviewed six progress reports. Of the six progress reports, three resulted in a change of accreditation status from Probation to Accreditation. TMA currently accredits 63 organizations.
Common areas of non-compliance in the October reviews included failure to obtain and disclose disclosure from planners (C7, SCS 2 and 6), and correct use of the accreditation statement. Please note the following requirements:
- Disclosure must be obtained from all persons who contribute to the content of CME activities. This includes members of your CME committee if their role includes initiating CME topics and relevant content, selecting speakers, and/or reviewing and approving activities for credit. The disclosed information must be analyzed for possible conflicts of interests and resolved prior to the activity, and then finally, the disclosed information from both speakers and planners must be given to the learners.
- All activities certified for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ must include both the accreditation statement and the credit statement in announcement and activity materials. The accreditation statement informs participants of the name of the accredited entity and the accrediting body, and the credit statement indicates to learners the number of credits available for the activity. Please see page 5 of the TMA Accreditation Manual for the exact wording of these statements.
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Enter Your 2012 Activity Data into PARS
The Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) on the ACCME (Accreditation Council for CME) website is open to TMA-accredited providers. We encourage you to start entering 2012 activity data now in anticipation of the year-end reporting deadline. You are welcome to enter basic information about an activity before it happens and complete the entry after the activity. To meet your year-end reporting deadline, you must enter data for your 2012 activities and complete your 2012 program summary by March 31, 2013.
If you have not already done so, please access PARS http://www.accme.org/cme-providers using your email address and provider identification number to request a password. The system allows up to five users for each provider, and each user will have his/her unique password. Once the contact information is established, please begin add your organization's activity data. ACCME's resources for using PARS are excellent. They include FAQs and the following videos:
Finally, if you need assistance with PARS, please contact Billie Dalrymple in the TMA CME office. Do not contact ACCME, they will direct you to TMA. Also, if no representative from your organization participated in PARS training, please contact the TMA CME office for a consultation.
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Can We Award Credit to Physicians Who Speak at CME Activities
Yes, accredited CME providers can award AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ to speakers who present in certified CME activities. The credit recognizes the learning associated with the preparing and teaching an original presentation. The AMA, the owner of the credit system we use to award AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™, considers it a live activity that offers Faculty Credit. You can read about it in the AMA PRA Booklet page 4, but basically you can award 2 credits for every hour of presentation and the credit can only be claimed for the original presentation.
The ACCME and TMA as accrediting bodies require a planning process to identify the faculty’s learning gaps/needs in presenting something that matches the objectives set out by the accredited provider for the learners in the activity. It is referred to as “Learning from Teaching.” You are free to design the activity as you wish, but for purposes of the annual report, you would report all credit awarded as Faculty Credit as one activity called “Learning from Teaching” and then you would enter the number of credits awarded and the number of physicians who received the credit. This would be a combination of all presenters for the year. Here is a link to information on this format for CME on the ACCME website.
Another option is to direct the speakers who want credit for serving as faculty directly to the AMA. Serving as speakers in CME-certified activities is something for which direct credit from the AMA is allowed. There is a form to complete and a fee to pay. The form is called Direct Credit Application.
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Is Training for Physicians About Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Appropriate for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ ?
Yes. If an organization has purchased an EMR system, training the physicians on how to use it can be developed as an AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ activity. Physicians need to know how to use the system in order to do their job within the organization. The formats could include group lectures, one-on-one training, and enduring materials.
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