Crozer-Chester Medical Center is a not-for-profit tertiary-care teaching hospital and one of the founding hospitals of the Crozer-Keystone Health System. The Continuing Medical Education Committee of Crozer-Chester Medical Center, a committee which is governed by the Academic Committee of Crozer-Keystone Health System, is committed to providing quality continuing medical education.

Purpose

The primary goals of the Continuing Medical Education Committee are:

• To maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance that physicians require to provide services for patients, the public or the profession.
• To establish continuing medical education activities intended to advance patient care and foster lifelong learning among physicians as well as other healthcare professionals, utilizing a technique that links the identified need with the desired quality outcome and employing the principles of evidence based medicine.
• To offer physicians in our healthcare system and surrounding communities continuing medical education activities of consistently high quality.
• To oversee the development of quality curricula: coordinate facilities, speakers, staff and vendor participation; design and produce educational materials and graphics; administrate all CME needs, financial transactions, databases for registration and distribution.
• To utilize advanced computer technology in an effort to provide innovative educational tools for the physicians and healthcare professionals of the Crozer Keystone Healthcare System.

Content

• CME content may be determined in several ways. One of the most important sources is suggestions from our constituency. Our CME evaluation forms have space reserved for physicians to recommend topics for future programs. We encourage the use of our evaluation forms for this purpose. Topics are also from needs surveys, quality improvement activities and informal staff requests. Formats for individual activities are widely variable depending upon the expressed preferences of each group.
• Content of CME special programs is determined by an identified planning committee. The role of this committee is to ensure the educational planning and evaluation of a particular program (e.g., needs assessment, identification of the target audience, speaker/faculty recommendations, development of learning objectives and evaluation tools.) and adhere to the ACCME's Essential Areas and Elements. All final decisions regarding a program, such as its curriculum content, format of delivery, selected faculty or authors, etc., are determined by the Continuing Medical Education Committee.
• We strive to create an educational environment that improves the quality of care available to the individuals in the community that we serve. The improvements must be based on objective measurements related to benchmarking activities, identified best practices, quality improvement data and utilization of current research findings. Educators must utilize a process that links the identified need with the desired result.
• Additionally, we are committed to supporting and strengthening the role of continuing medical education by maintaining a current collection of high quality educational offerings in the Medical Library, including state of the art computer technology.

Target Audience

The target audience for continuing medical education consists of all physicians including but not limited to: Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Dentistry, Dermatology, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Neurology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Radiology, Reproductive Endocrinology, Surgery, Trauma and, in addition, all other allied health professionals.

Types of Activities

The CME program at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center encompasses many activities including:

• regularly scheduled CME activities through a variety of departments, offering a wide range of topics and subtopics. In addition to traditional didactic presentations, program coordinators are encouraged to explore panel discussions, journal clubs, newsletters and interactive workshops.
• several major CME events that are presented annually. These activities reach out to a larger audience, require an extended period of time and/or utilize multiple educational formats to be most effective. They usually involve both local and national experts.
• Internet/web-based presentations of enduring materials, made available through the CKHS Intranet and the Internet.

Expected Outcomes

The expected results of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center CME program are:

• Participant enhancements of updated clinical skills, educational skills, and knowledge to improve patient care, medical education and research.
• Increased number of activities in which the learning of physician participants has been improved.
• Satisfactory evaluation results for participants, speakers, and course directors.
• Increased physician awareness in risk management and patient safety issues.
• Increased participation.

The Crozer-Chester Medical Center is committed to evaluating the effectiveness of its individual activities as well as the overall program. This is accomplished by attempting innovative methods to determine if we are being successful in improving patient care and health outcomes in our community. Methods include quality measurements before and after activities, evaluation of a learned activity, and improved patient and community well-being.

Approved by the CME Committee 1/19/06; Approved by Academic Committee 2/15/06; Approved by CKHS Board 7/20/06