An expanded collaboration between the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the American Board of Internal Medicine means that CME providers can now register their practice assessment activities for Maintenance of Certification through the ACCME’s system.
The collaboration, which began in 2015, already allows accredited providers to streamline registration of medical knowledge MOC activities by using the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System, or PARS, to apply for dual CME and MOC credit. ABIM and ACCME expanded their collaboration to increase the number and diversity of CME activities that can earn both CME credit through ACCME and MOC points through ABIM. Accredited providers can now use PARS to register medical knowledge, practice assessment (including formal performance-improvement and other CME activities that support lifelong learning and quality improvement), or a combination of credit types, as long as they meet the ABIM MOC Assessment Recognition Program. Physicians can earn MOC points for completing practice assessment activities now, even though ABIM decided not to require practice assessment in its MOC program until 2019.
The collaboration, which received the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Profession’s 2017 Award for Outstanding Collaboration, already has resulted in more than 240 accredited CME providers registering more than 7,000 activities for CME and MOC credit in PARS.
“In less than two years, ABIM’s collaboration with ACCME has resulted in over 3.3 million MOC points earned by more than 68,000 physicians for accredited CME activities they are already doing to stay current and improve the care they provide,” said Richard J. Baron, MD, MACP, president and CEO of ABIM. “As our collaboration expands we want to offer physicians even more choice and convenience for how they fulfill ongoing education and certification requirements. With this expansion, many new types of activities that combine lifelong learning and quality improvement will also be available for dual credit.”
“We celebrate the expansion of our collaboration with ABIM, because it will generate many more opportunities for accredited CME providers to support physician engagement in education that focuses on quality and safety improvement,” said Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, president and CEO of the ACCME. “Since its inception in 2015, our collaboration has succeeded in making a real and meaningful difference to physicians and educators who are working every day to improve healthcare in their communities.”
