Dear Colleagues, 
Today we celebrate Healthcare Continuing Education Professionals Day—an opportunity to recognize the educators, planners, and leaders who make accredited continuing education a powerful engine for improving healthcare. Your work demonstrates how learning—when structured, intentional, and protected by accreditation—delivers measurable value, trust, and impact across the healthcare system.
The 2025 CPD/CE Workforce Survey confirms what healthcare leaders increasingly recognize: continuing education professionals are experienced, sophisticated, and deeply committed to advancing system-wide improvement. When empowered by institutional leadership, CE professionals become strategic partners—strengthening teamwork, accelerating adoption of new science, and supporting organizational goals for quality, safety, and efficiency.
Accredited continuing medical education and continuing professional development now represent one of the most extensive learning infrastructures in healthcare. In 2024 alone, more than 1,560 accredited organizations delivered over 250,000 educational activities, reaching clinicians and healthcare teams through nearly 57 million learner interactions nationwide.
This scale reflects not only the reach of accredited education, but its central role in translating evidence into practice where care is delivered.
As described in my recent Journal of CME article, the value of accredited education extends far beyond knowledge acquisition. Across the ACCME System, 95% of activities measure learner competence, and growing proportions assess clinician performance, patient health, and community outcomes—demonstrating a sustained shift toward education that improves real-world practice and care delivery. These outcomes are achieved through deliberate instructional design, continuous measurement, and a skilled professional workforce that integrates learning with quality improvement.
Equally important, accreditation safeguards the integrity and independence of this work. The vast majority of accredited activities operates without commercial support, reinforcing public trust and ensuring that education remains evidence-based, balanced, and focused on patient and community needs. This commitment to independence is foundational to the credibility of continuing education as a public good.
On this day of recognition, I want to thank you for the expertise, care, and purpose you bring to your work. Accredited continuing education succeeds because of you—because you design learning that matters, measure what improves care, and sustain the trust that underpins our healthcare system.
With appreciation and respect,
Graham T. McMahon, MD, MMSc
President and Chief Executive Officer
Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME)
