Public and Confidential Information about Accredited Providers

The Policy

The following information is considered public information, and therefore may be released by the ACCME. Public information includes certain information about accredited providers, and ACCME reserves the right to publish and release to the public, including on the ACCME Web site, all public information:

1. Names and contact information for accredited providers;
2. Accreditation status of provider;
3. Some annual report data submitted by the accredited provider, including for any given year:
   • Number of activities;
   • Number of hours of education;
   • Number of physician interactions;
   • Number of other learner interactions;
   • Number of designated AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^TM;
   • Competencies that activities were designed to address;
   • Accepts commercial support (yes or no);
   • Accepts advertising/exhibit revenue (yes or no);
   • Participates in joint providership (yes or no);
   • Types of activities produced (list)

Note: The ACCME will not release any dollar amounts reported by individual accredited providers for income, commercial support, or advertising/exhibits.

1. Aggregated accreditation finding and decision data broken down by provider type;
2. Responses to public calls for comment initiated by the ACCME;
3. Executive summaries from the ACCME Board of Directors’ Meetings (exclusive of actions taken during executive session); and
4. Any other data/information that ACCME believes qualifies as “public information.”

The ACCME reserves the right to use and/or share anonymized PARS data for research purposes, in keeping with the guidance of the ACCME Board of Directors.

The ACCME will maintain as confidential information, except as required for ACCME accreditation purposes, or as may be required by legal process, or as otherwise authorized by the accredited provider to which it relates:

1. To the extent not described as public information above, information submitted to the ACCME by the provider during the initial or reaccreditation decision-making processes for that provider;
2. Correspondence to and from ACCME relating to the accreditation process for a provider; and
3. ACCME proceedings (e.g., Board minutes, transcripts) relating to a provider, other than the accreditation outcome of such proceedings.

In order to protect confidential information, ACCME and its volunteers are required:

1. Not to make copies of, disclose, discuss, describe, distribute or disseminate in any manner whatsoever, including in any oral, written, or electronic form, any confidential information that the ACCME or its volunteers receive or generate, or any part of it, except directly for the accreditation or complaint/inquiry decision-making purposes;
2. Not to use such confidential information for personal or professional benefit, or for any other reason, except directly for ACCME purposes.

ACCME Note

The ACCME requires CME providers to submit information about their CME programs and activities in order to attain and maintain accreditation. Some of that information is kept confidential, while other information is made public. When determining what information to make public about ACCME-accredited providers, the ACCME believes in balancing transparency, accountability to the public, and providers’ confidentiality.