Highlights

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME®) and the American Board of Surgery (ABS) are pleased to announce that all accredited CME providers in the ACCME System are now welcome to register CME activities that meet ABS Continuous Certification Program requirements and to submit learner completion data in the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS).
 

A Streamlined Process for CME Providers and ABS Diplomates
The process is similar to registering activities that meet the requirements of other certifying boards that are collaborating with the ACCME. Details are described in the CME for Maintenance of Certification Program Guide.

• No pre-approval needed: You are not required to submit applications to ABS to award CME credit that will count towards ABS Continuous Certification Program requirements.
• Effective date: You can register your 2021 activities for ABS Continuous Certification and report learner completions from March 2021 onward. You should not report learner completions that took place before March 1, 2021.
• Credit types: ABS will accept activities registered as Accredited CME and Self-Assessment (Accredited CME with Evaluation and Feedback). Any CME activity that is relevant to surgical practice can be registered. To grant Self-Assessment credit, providers will also need to inform learners about participation in the evaluation component and provide feedback to them about whether they met the requirements to earn Continuous Certification credit for the activity.
• Learner participation reporting: You are responsible for collecting the required individual learner completion data and submitting it into PARS. You will need to submit first name, last name, and month and day of birth, along with the activity and credit details. Learner completion data should be reported in PARS within 30 days of successful completion. Once in PARS, it will be transmitted directly from the ACCME to the ABS, simplifying the process for your ABS learners.
• CME Finder: Activities that you register in PARS for ABS Continuous Certification will appear in the CME Finder, a one-stop resource for physicians searching for accredited CME that meets the requirements for ABS Continuous Certification.

Resources

Please note that although the resources refer to Maintenance of Certification, they are applicable to the ABS Continuous Certification Program. Some boards use different terms to describe the process of maintaining certification. ABS uses the term Continuous Certification. 

• CME that Counts for Maintenance of Certification webpage 
• CME for Maintenance of Certification Program Guide: This unified guide includes the requirements that are common across all of the boards collaborating with the ACCME in one main section, followed by sections for the board-specific requirements for the ABS and other collaborating boards.
• CME for Maintenance of Certification Beginner’s Guide: This guide will walk you through the basics of integrating Maintenance of Certification/Continuous Certification into your organization’s currently existing CME program. This beginner’s guide is meant to be a primer to be used in conjunction with the CME for Maintenance of Certification Program Guide, which provides in-depth information on the specific requirements for each board.
• CME for Maintenance of Certification Evaluation Guide: This document provides examples of different evaluation mechanisms which can be used for MOC activities. These evaluation guidelines are applicable across the currently collaborating certifying boards, for those credit types which require participation in an evaluation/feedback process.
• FAQ

Shared Commitment to Supporting Surgeons and Advancing Patient Care
The ACCME and the ABS share a commitment to providing flexible, high-quality, practice-relevant learning and assessment to support surgeons in their practice and to promote safe and effective patient care. With this collaboration, the ACCME and ABS aim to increase the number and diversity of accredited CME activities that meet the requirements for ABS Continuous Certification and to streamline the process for ABS diplomates and for accredited CME providers.

“The ABS looks forward to working with the ACCME on a seamless transfer of diplomate CME activities. The ACCME-ABS collaboration will decrease the administrative burden of CME reporting and will allow diplomates to devote their time to lifelong learning and the care of patients, instead of tracking and uploading CME credits. The PARS collaboration also provides diplomates with ready access to a trove of available CME opportunities.”—Jo Buyske, MD, President and CEO, American Board of Surgery (ABS)

“In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to support the efforts of educators and surgeons to optimize the care delivered to the patients and communities we all serve. By working together, the ACCME and the ABS empower our educators to offer ABS diplomates more flexibility in choosing high-quality, practice-relevant learning that advances their ability to deliver the highest quality care.”—Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, President and CEO, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) 

The collaboration with the ABS continues the ACCME’s commitment to supporting physicians’ commitment to lifelong learning and to easing burdens on physicians by enabling them to meet multiple professional requirements by participating in accredited CME. The ACCME has also developed collaborations with these American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) member boards: the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA), the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO), the American Board of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery (ABOHNS), the American Board of Pathology (ABPath), and the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP). For more information, visit CME in Support of MOC.

Questions?
Accredited CME providers: Please contact info@accme.org.
ABS Diplomates: Please contact the ABS communications department.