Activity Planner Requirements

The Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) staff are committed to assisting you in planning and executing the highest quality continuing education programs to fulfill the educational requirements of your target audience. Please review the Activity Planning Guide, and additional resources.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

• The previous standard for quality CME focused on knowledge transfer, but this is no longer sufficient. Approval now requires activities designed to enhance competence (defined as knowledge with a strategy to utilize it), performance (the ability to demonstrate competence), and/or patient outcomes.
• The activity must be planned to address an identified professional practice gap (the difference between what the physician actually does and what the physician should do) and the educational needs that underlie the gaps.
• The activity format should consider effective teaching and learning methods to achieve learning objectives.
• An identified target audience is crucial, and educational content must directly relate to their professional practice.
• The activity must be evaluated to determine its effectiveness at closing the practice gap.
• Planning must be free from commercial influence, and individuals controlling CME content must disclose relevant financial relationships with a commercial interest.

Tools Used for Identification of Professional Practice Gaps: 

1. National practice standards
2. Maintenance of certification (e.g. core competencies)
3. Need for practice improvement identified by:
   - Learners (e.g. by group survey or by request from individual practitioners)
   - Specialists often recognize areas of suboptimal practice among non-specialists 
   who manage patients in their area of specialization
   - Observed outcome trends
4. Issues arising from departmental quality of care or patient safety monitoring
5. Top areas of litigation
6. Emerging research and technology of clinical relevance
7. Policy, legal, or ethical considerations with implications for medical practice
8. Practice management aspects which affect patient care