At the American Medical Association’s National Task Force on CME Provider/Industry Collaboration conference, held in Baltimore in September, Dave Davis, MD, FCFP, senior director, continuing education/performance improvement, Association of American Medical Colleges, outlined what he said were the seven biggest issues the CME needs to deal with, from the AAMC’s perspective.

1. Format: Moving from didactic only to all the ways in which healthcare professionals learn.

2. Audience: According to the 2010 Accreditation Council for CME, there are more non-physician HCPs attending CME than ever before. Davis also suggested the CME community consider offering patient education in parallel with HCP education.

3. Content: There is a move away from purely therapeutic clinical topics to now also include prevention, screening, patient communication.

4. Location: CME is morphing from a lecture in a hotel ballroom into workplace learning in the practice setting.

5. Outcomes: There’s a move from just ensuring the right number of “seats in seats” to measuring outcomes in terms of patient and population outcomes.

6. Finances: Commercial support is becoming more pluralistic, with non-pharma organizations such as insurers and healthcare organizations contributing.

7. Integration: While the day of the CME office being isolated in the basement may not quite be over yet, Davis said it is on its way out as the CME office becomes more integrated with the other elements of its parent organization.

More coverage of the 2011 AMA Task Force conference:
Task Force 2011: CEJA, Misperceptions, REMS, and More
Photos from the Task Force Conference
Task Force Day 1: Keynote Address
Task Force Day 1, Continued