About CME at Stanford
Continuing medical education (CME) consists of educational activities which serve to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance and relationships that a physician uses to provide services for patients, the public, or the profession. The content of CME is that body of knowledge and skills generally recognized and accepted by the profession as within the basic medical sciences, the discipline of clinical medicine, and the provision of health care to the public.
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) sets the standards for the accreditation of all providers of CME activities. The ACCME has two major functions: the accreditation of providers whose CME activities attract a national audience and the recognition of state or territorial medical societies to accredit providers whose audiences for its CME activities are primarily from that state/territory and contiguous states/territories. The ACCME’s seven member organizations are the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Association for Hospital Medical Education (AHME), the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), and the Federation of State Medical Boards of the U.S., Inc. (FSMB).
ACCME accreditation is a mark of quality continuing medical education (“CME”) activities that are planned, implemented and evaluated by ACCME accredited providers in accordance with ACCME’s Essential Areas and Elements and Accreditation Policies. ACCME accreditation assures the medical community and the public that such activities provide physicians with information that can assist them in maintaining or improving their practice of medicine. These activities are free of commercial bias and based on valid content.
The Stanford University School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Mission Statement
The Stanford University School of Medicine is a premier research-intensive institution that improves health through collaborative discoveries and innovation in patient care, education and research. The school fosters a two-way transfer of knowledge between research laboratories and patient-care settings with faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars, students, and physicians in the broader medical community and engages interdisciplinary efforts to translate this knowledge into practice.
Purpose
The purpose of the Stanford University School of Medicine CME program is to promote continuous improvement in patient health care by providing physicians and other health care professionals with high quality, evidence-based educational activities focusing on advances in medicine, new medical technology, biomedical research, and changes in the health care environment. The overall goal of the program is to improve physician knowledge and competency and enhance performance in practice.
Content
The content of Stanford's CME program includes a broad range of primary care, specialty and subspecialty topics that are determined through a comprehensive needs assessment process. The needs assessment process determines "gaps" in knowledge or performance, defined as the difference between current practice and best practice. CME content will be appropriate to the target audience's current or potential scope of professional activities. CME activities will be planned in the context of desirable physician attributes and core competencies, and shall serve the best interests of the public.
Target Audience
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Local audiences comprised of community physicians as well as physicians from the system's affiliated hospitals.
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Other physicians in Northern California.
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Physicians from the United States and other countries in the world.
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Health care professionals as part of a multidisciplinary team.
Activity Types
Stanford offers a variety of CME activities, including the following:
- Regularly Scheduled Series
- Live Courses
- Skills Workshops
- Enduring Materials
Learning methods are selected based on the setting, identified needs, desired results, and learning styles of the target audience.
Expected Results
As a result of their participation in the Stanford CME program, learners will demonstrate changes in competence and/or improvement in performance-in-practice. Metrics for determination of success include the following:
For changes in competence, outcomes assessments will determine that knowledge was gained, and/or confidence increased, and that a strategy was present for using the knowledge gained.
For improvements in performance-in-practice, outcomes assessments will show that physicians implemented new behaviors in their practice that were intended as results of the educational activity.
