Office of Continuing Medical Education

Baylor College of Medicine Continuing Medical Education Mission Statement

Purpose

The mission of the continuing medical education (CME) program at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is to provide high quality CME activities that promote lifelong learning and support efforts to enhance competence and physician performance in patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice. The Office of Continuing Medical Education maintains oversight responsibility for the planning, implementation, evaluation, and documentation of all CME activities sponsored and/or offered by BCM in order to ensure that the requirements of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and other applicable regulatory requirements are met.

Target Audience

BCM CME activities are designed to meet the identified educational needs of physicians, medical educators, and clinical researchers at the local, regional, national and international levels. The CME activities also target the specific educational needs of faculty and practitioners at Baylor College of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals and clinics. Participation by non-physician healthcare providers in BCM CME activities is encouraged, where appropriate.

Content

BCM CME activities are designed to keep pace with advances in medicine, technology, and biomedical research, based on the best available evidence, as well as changes in the health care environment. BCM is committed to offering CME that is scientifically based, accurate, current, objectively presented, and free of commercial bias. CME content addresses topics across the spectrum of medical specialties and subspecialties. BCM's CME activities are updated regularly to capitalize on the strengths of CME faculty and other resources and to explore opportunities to enhance the medical knowledge, skills, and clinical performance of participants.

Types of Activities

BCM offers a wide range of CME activities which may include live courses; regularly scheduled series (grand rounds, mortality/morbidity conferences, tumor boards); Internet/webcasts; Internet/online enduring materials; other enduring materials (printed or recorded instructional materials); decision support; just in time learning; and journal-based CME. All BCM CME activities are planned and implemented based on multimodal needs assessment. Educational design and methods are selected based on identified needs, content to be addressed, educational objectives, and activity evaluation and outcomes assessment strategies, including, where possible, methodologies demonstrated to change physician behavior and improve healthcare outcomes.

Expected Results

The BCM CME program fulfills its mission of advancing physician knowledge and clinical performance by providing high quality activities. An active evaluation and research component advances CME nationally through extensive program evaluation and research studies. Expected CME results are assessed on two levels: 1) participant-focused results; and 2) discipline-focused results. Regarding participant-focused results, the BCM CME program is committed to assessment of learning using appropriate measures and techniques to assess learner gains. Results are measured using appropriate quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques for assessing parameters appropriate to the learning experience. These parameters might include: a) change in knowledge levels, b) participant attitudes, c) perceived self-efficacy in clinical application, d) skill levels in performing clinical tasks, and e) impacts on physician performance and/or health outcomes as determined through chart reviews, patient interviews, institutional reports on clinical performance measures and other data. With regard to discipline-focused results, BCM is providing leadership in exploring the effectiveness of traditional and emerging instructional methods and technologies in affecting measurable change in the quality and outcomes of care. Results from assessments of instructional impact and effectiveness are shared with the larger fields of medical education and CME through publications, presentations, archived resources accessible via the Internet, and other techniques designed to contribute to understanding of what constitutes effective CME.

The CME program operates in an academic health science center environment promoting lifelong learning for all participants across the medical education continuum from undergraduate to graduate to professional practice. The overall program is continuously evaluated to assure alignment with the mission and the effectiveness of its general operations and policies and procedures.

Approved by the Baylor College of Medicine CME Standing Committee, January 20, 2006.