CME Planning Steps
Introduction:
The NMA is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education through its Annual Scientific Assembly and Region, State and Local conferences. As an accredited provider of the ACCME, the NMA is committed to addressing the educational needs of physicians, measuring educational effectiveness and continual quality improvement.
All continuing medical education presented in the name of the NMA must meet specific criteria in order to assure quality level education, professional development for practicing physicians and NMA accreditation by the ACCME. Failure of Program Directors to adhere to NMA policies and processes may jeopardize NMA’s standing with the ACCME and its ability to continue to certify educational activities for CME credit.
Each of the steps described in this booklet must be performed and documented to provide quality education and meet ACCME requirements. In order to complete all steps in a satisfactory manner, planning must begin one year prior to the activity. T
hese planning steps are designed to guide you through the process of identifying an educational need, developing objectives based on that need, effectively designing the educational activity and evaluating the outcome or potential effect on the physician’s application of learning to patient care.
An understanding of the link between the need, the objectives, activity design and evaluation/outcome measures are a critical foundation for the planning steps which are described in this document. All planners must adhere to demonstrating and documenting this linkage.
To download the planning the Forms and Template Document click the link below:
Forms and Templates Document1-_p_pLANING
Disclosure/Conflict of Interest
As you may know, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) has issued Updated Standards for Commercial Support to which all accredited providers must now adhere. As a result, we have instituted new policies and procedures for collecting relationship information from you, for identifying conflicts of interest, and for resolving those conflicts of interest. The following is a brief description of those changes and how they may affect you as a planner or faculty member for the National Medical Association.
We have developed a revised Full Disclosure Form that is different from previous forms we have sent you. (select the link below to download the form)
That form must be completed by all persons in a position to affect the content of the CME activity. Therefore, while in the past you may not have been asked to complete a form if you were on the planning committee and were not presenting or authoring, all planners and faculty members must now complete this form.
In the past, if we did not receive relationship information from a faculty member, that faculty member could still present and we would merely indicate to the audience that the faculty member had not submitted disclosure information. This is no longer possible. Any planner or faculty member who refuses or fails to submit relationship information will not be permitted to participate in planning or implementing the activity.
We are now required to identify and resolve conflicts of interest held by planners and faculty members.
Because of the possibility of disqualification for failure to provide relationship information and because of the need to examine the relationship information for possible conflicts, we will set deadlines for receipt of the Full Disclosure Form from you. Failure to meet these deadlines will result in your disqualification from participation in the activity.
As a result of our analysis of your relationship information, we may find that you have a conflict of interest. This does not necessarily mean that you cannot participate in the activity. Rather, depending on the nature of the conflict, we will undertake efforts to resolve that conflict, including, but not limited to, communicating obligations and restrictions to you, altering your role in the activity, reviewing your content for possible revision, and monitoring your presentation.
