News 

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MATE ACT

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently released materials related to the new Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act. The Act requires new or renewing DEA registrants, as of June 27, 2023, to have completed a total of at least eight hours of accredited continuing education (CE) on the treatment and management of patients with opioid or other substance use disorders before renewing their license.

The MATE Act expands opportunities for practitioners to fulfill their training requirements, including via accredited CE. The full guidance is available here.

Accredited providers have the following opportunities to take action:

• Educate your stakeholders, including organizational leadership, planners, faculty, and learners, on this guidance. Feel free to share this communication with your teams.
• Plan and register your pain and substance use disorder (SUD)-related activities in ACCME's Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) so that learners can search for and find activities that would support the MATE Act expectations on www.CMEPassport.org.
• Help your learners understand that your accredited CE activities meet the SAMHSA/DEA expectations and can be used to fulfill the MATE Act requirement for prescribers.

Learn more here.

REGISTER FOR LEARN TO THRIVE 2023 BY APRIL 21

There’s still time to register for Learn to Thrive 2023, ACCME’s annual meeting! Join us on May 16-18 at the Sheraton Grand Chicago for three days of meaningful discussion, collaborative learning opportunities, and connection with your peers. At Learn to Thrive 2023, you will have the opportunity to explore strategies for fostering successful team-based education, examine necessary skills for learning leadership, discuss how to level-up your CE activities by incorporating gameful pedagogies, engage in strategy-building sessions to help shape your CE program, and exchange effective practices and develop new approaches with your peers. 

Be sure to reserve your spot by 5:00 pm CT on Friday, April 21. Register now to ensure access to your preferred sessions, which fill up on a first-come-first-served basis.

Day Two – Can CE Prepare the Workforce for Learning Healthcare?
On the second day of Learn to Thrive 2023, join us for a conversation with Dr. Charles Friedman, Department Chair of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and a panel of learning health system leaders to explore a key opportunity for accredited CE—addressing the skills that healthcare professionals need to achieve the vision of learning healthcare.

Day Three – Gameful Pedagogies, GOBLINs, and Epic Heroes: The Power of Play in Education
Level up your educational initiatives on the last day of Learn to Thrive 2023! From Wordle to World of Warcraft, games spark curiosity, competition, and engagement. Keegan Long-Wheeler, Educational Technologist from the Office of Digital Learning at the University of Oklahoma, will use his background in learning science, technology, and design to lead us through ways to evolve CE activities and enhance learning by incorporating gameful pedagogies into any educational format.

SUBMIT YOUR CALL FOR COMMENT ON DIGITAL DATA MANAGEMENT BY APRIL 7

We want to hear from you! The ACCME has been working to simplify the management of CME credits and seeks comments from accredited providers on the best next steps to support this evolution and maximize participation from all providers in the digital ecosystem. Your comments will be summarized and used to inform future discussions on data management in CME and strategic planning. Please submit your response by Friday, April 7. Learn more about the Call for Comment.

NEW RESOURCE: CME CREDIT REPORTING CHECKLIST

Check out ACCME’s new checklist, designed to help accredited providers start reporting CME credit for their physician-learners. Based on feedback from our accredited education community, we created a step-by-step guide to assist accredited providers in beginning the CME credit reporting process.

Reminders for Accredited Providers

COMPLETE YOUR ANNUAL REPORTING IN PARS BY TOMORROW, MARCH 31

Thank you to those who have already completed your annual reporting requirement! If you have not yet completed your annual reporting requirement, you must enter data for your 2022 activities, complete your program summary, and accept the annual agreement in ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) by tomorrow, March 31, 2023.

We hosted webinars to answer questions about annual reporting in PARS. Check out the recording and slides. For more information and links to educational resources, please visit our Using PARS webpage.

Questions? We're happy to help. Please contact us at info@accme.org.

APPLY FOR ABMS VISITNG SCHOLARS PROGRAM 

The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is now accepting applications for the 2023–2024 ABMS Visiting Scholars Program™. This one-year, part-time program facilitates research exploring best practices and innovative approaches that address priorities for the certification community—physician learning and assessment, physician performance, continuing professional development, quality improvement, and patient safety. Applications are due by June 18, 2023 (11:59 pm CT). Learn more about the application process here.

Education & Resources

ACCREDITATION MYTH OF THE MONTH 

Myth: The activity course chair must fill out the CME activity planning form. 

Reality: While many accredited providers utilize a planning document to ensure all areas of activity planning and documentation are addressed, you have great flexibility in how you capture this information.

Rather than asking a faculty member to complete yet another form, consider how else you might get the information needed. Can you instead schedule a 10-minute conversation with them, and ask a few questions?  If you employ this tactic, we encourage use of everyday questions such as “What practice-based problem will this education address?” Perhaps other office staff are involved in coordinating logistics and can provide some of the details you need.

NOW AVAILABLE: AMERICAN BOARD OF ANESTHESIOLOGY HIGH PRIORITY TOPICS REPORT

The American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) has released their new High Priority Topics Report for Q3-4 2022, which offers insights into planning CME for board-certified anesthesiologists to develop and maintain their knowledge and skillset. Report contents are informed by anesthesiologists’ continuing certification program performance, rather than survey responses. Consider leveraging performance data from this report as you plan your next CME activity.

SAVE THE DATE: ATTEND CMEPALOOZA ON APRIL 12 

CMEpalooza, a free virtual conference for CME/CE professionals, is back on Wednesday, April 12 at 9 am ET. With topics ranging from addressing health disparities to the value of ChatGPT in medical education, the CMEpalooza Spring agenda was designed to be interesting, informative, and entertaining.  Visit the CMEpalooza website to check out the rest of the agenda and explore past sessions in the CMEpalooza Archive. Thanks to sponsor support, CMEpalooza Spring is free and doesn’t require registration.

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NEW COFFEE WITH GRAHAM EPISODE: BUILDING GENDER EQUITY IN MEDICINE

Tune in to our new Coffee with Graham podcast episode! In honor of Women’s History Month, we sat down with two members of ACCME’s Board of Directors, Erica Scavella, MD, FACP, FACHE and Gay Wehrli, MD, MBA, MSEd, to discuss their experiences as female leaders in the medical field. Listen here.