Recent Update: ACCME Mandates Promoting Innovation for Successful CME

You might see a few eye rolls if you mention CME innovation as one of several ACCME mandates in a team meeting. Isn’t providing superior CME to an audience with varied learning styles and levels of professional experience challenging enough without having to think about innovation? Fortunately, innovation isn’t defined as the “cool factor,” at least not by the ACCME. What the ACCME wants is what you are likely already doing: developing creative methods to overcome challenges to exceptional learning experiences for your members. In this post, you’ll learn how to amplify your productivity while transforming your CME program’s administration structure into an engine of rapid innovation.

Innovation 101: How Does the ACCME Define CME Innovation?

It shouldn’t be surprising if the word “innovation” sent a slight shiver down your spine as you are catching up on the latest must-read ACCME mandates. The word conjures images of Silicon Valley hipsters developing new ways to make critical tasks like content updates and user data processing more complicated and technology-dependent. First things first: learning management system (LMS) software should remove—not add—layers of complexity. The right LMS will help your program align with the objectives of the ACCME while streamlining time-intensive administrative tasks to help you monitor, maintain, and enhance compliance across your entire organization.

Understanding ACCME Mandates: Innovation in Structural and Process Agility

In a 2018 press release, JAMA and the ACCME affirmed their joint intention to promote innovation as an expected component of all CME programming, comprising enduring aspects of CME administrative and content management and development. While JAMA and the ACCME focused on promoting innovative educational strategy and offering compliance guidance, the groundwork for the creation of forward-thinking educational models has naturally been left to CME providers. Any organization attempting to foster meaningful innovation must start with quality assurance on a procedural level before tackling progressive strategy.

Criterion 35

The provider demonstrates creativity and innovation in the evolution of its CME program.

Every component of your CME program should be built to scale intelligently. Your CME program’s structure should hold an innate ability to accommodate the changing needs of a diverse audience of learners with different professional competency levels and interests.

The easiest way to effect this is to consolidate CME operations through an enterprise-grade LMS that reduces administrative backlog by automating time-intensive critical tasks that drain team productivity levels. The ACCME states that Criterion 35 compliance may include (but are not limited to) innovation in educational approach, design, assessment, or use of technology. Here are a few strategy examples to consider.

Educational Approach: Make Systemic Innovation Easy

Don’t limit your curricular updates to a single course or activity. Implement a top-down strategy that allows you to design activities the way you want, with immersive learning experience components (like video and webinars) easily accessible to editors. An agile LMS will allow you to respond to the specific needs of your learners with curriculum improvements quickly, ensuring that each learners’ needs are met in a timely fashion.

Assessment: Accelerate Knowledge Retention

The best way to ensure that you have a trove of accurate, PARS-relevant data that shows demonstrable improvement in learner outcomes and continued user success is to use an LMS with an intuitive learner assessment system. A robust LMS will provide customizable, instant learner feedback on an individual assessment, per question, or per activity milestone basis, reinforcing key concepts and promoting knowledge retention through every activity.

Use of Technology: Own a Tech Stack That Fuels Productivity

The right LMS will alleviate the administrative burdens that hamper team productivity and pull human resources away from your program’s main goal, providing stellar educational experiences.

What will innovation look like in your organization? Take a look at administrative design, content delivery, and data optimization for opportunities to transform your organization’s educational outcomes.

When choosing an LMS to ensure Criterion 35 compliance, look for features like:

Administrative Automation

Look for an LMS platform that allows you to change the way your organization does business at a granular level, building efficiency and quality assurance controls into every member touchpoint. From emails to payment processing, choose an LMS that handles time-consuming critical tasks for you.

Data Optimization

Use an LMS that gives you control of your data, empowering you to glean real-time insights on learner behaviors and outcomes and share them across your organization. Learn the fastest way to get your hands on your data fast.

Seamless Content Delivery

Select an LMS that makes it easy to reach your learners with content wherever they are, on any platform that provides the greatest impact. Whether it’s a live webinar, podcast, or online video, an enterprise-grade LMS will allow you to match content to context flawlessly with a stellar user experience.

Why Mandate Innovation?

As educational research reveals the neuroscientific basis for impactful learning experiences, we know much more today about how students can retain the most knowledge over time. We also know how medical professionals prefer to receive content—at their convenience, the same way they get their news and entertainment.

The ACCME mandates innovation because the future demands it. Innovation is necessary to ensure that learners get the most out of their experience and stay engaged over time. Innovation means compliance is easier to sustain, as the right technology removes roadblocks to efficient CME management.

The Right Tech Partner Can Transform Your Program—Even if You Are Not Compliance-Ready

EthosCE simplifies content and program design innovation with enterprise-grade curriculum, data analytics, and administrative design options. We’re more than a software platform. We empower innovation from day one with on-going support and a user-friendly data analytics suite that helps you get the most out of our powerful content delivery platform. Our LMS makes innovation part of your organization’s core capabilities—with a few clicks. EthosCE is CME brilliance simplified. Connect for a demo here.

EthosCE believes CME technology solutions should be designed to improve healthcare professionals’ user experience, comply with ACCME guidelines, reduce administrative costs, and demonstrate measurable outcomes.

To learn how EthosCE can enhance the continuing education of your medical professionals, request a free 1-on-1 demo with one of our specialists today!