The Center for Continuing Education within the UNMC College of Medicine has received a four-year accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).
The council offers accreditation to continuing medical education providers that offer opportunities to physicians to acquire the ongoing knowledge and skills they need to provide optimum care for their patients.
The ACCME has accredited approximately 2,500 providers of continuing medical education, including 17 in Nebraska.
“We are pleased with the input from departments and physicians in gaining this important recognition for another four years,” said Larry F. Willis, Ed.D., associate dean for Continuing Medical Education and director for the Center for Continuing Education. “The center’s goal is to collaborate with our departments and physicians in the development of quality educational programs for the health-care provider.”
Accreditation is a process by which an educational institution seeks to demonstrate that it meets standards of quality. As a voluntary, self-regulating process, accreditation supports and encourages self-assessment and peer review. In 1967, UNMC was one of the first seven academic institutions to receive national accreditation from the American Medical Association for continuing medical education.
To gain accreditation, the center staff and the Continuing Medical Education Committee worked collaboratively in the development of a self-study in 2001. The self-study evaluated organizational and programming aspects of the center and gave the center a chance to make improvements along the way.
After the self-study’s completion, a team of on-site visitors from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Los Angeles came to campus in November 2001 to evaluate the center. This was the first on-site inspection the Center has undergone. During the visit, the team reviewed the self-study and conducted interviews with administration.
The ACCME recognized the Center for Continuing Education for exemplary and above-standard performance in two areas: administration and educational planning and evaluation.
The center’s organized administration includes as sophisticated course-management system and a systematic budget. Every program, no matter its size, receives a budget plan that keeps cost in perspective, Dr. Willis said.
“The center is one of the few entities that is a completely self-supported unit,” Dr. Willis said. “Absolutely no state fees are used to run the office or develop programs. Through close budgeting and funding from grants and registration fees, the center is able to operate self-sufficiently.”
Educational planning and evaluation refers to the center’s ability to identify its users’ needs, plan programs that target that need and evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Willis said the center uses unique ways to collect program needs information through marketing strategies and updated databases. This allows the center to sponsor programs relevant to its physicians’ needs.