A WORD FROM THE NEW IACME PRESIDENT

Michelle Adams

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.  ~Henry Ford

I’d like to take an opportunity to thank all of you who attended the IACME meeting in May. It was a great meeting. The networking and exchanging of ideas was phenomenal and I received excellent feedback from participants. Most of all, I’d like to thank the people who volunteered for the IACME last year. Nothing would have been accomplished without each one of you who gave of your time, talent, and effort for your colleagues. We were founded by a group of individuals who felt passionate about sharing information and helping each other. And I am happy to say, that tradition was continued.

As we move into the summer with a new board, we will be meeting to think strategically and to set goals for what we’d like to accomplish in the next year and beyond. We have elected a diverse board of individuals who are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Our goal is to have a plan that allows us to move ahead, while using our resources wisely. Therefore, I’d like to issue a call to action to all of our members. As the board rolls out a plan, we will need volunteers to help complete projects. There are so many ways you can volunteer. The committees are always looking for people to write articles, share information or templates, recruit new members, and provide education. Some projects may take just a few hours and some may ask for more of a commitment. The success of our alliance is dependent on our volunteers. I look forward to working with all who answer this call.

Action is the foundational key to success.

~ Pablo Picasso

SPOTLIGHT: IACME Membership Committee

Linda DuPont, Chair

NEW COMMITTEE MEMBERS NEEDED

The membership committee is working through a re-structuring, which has only just begun, but that the Board is very excited to be launching.  In the new structure there will be a committee chair (myself) with three sub-committee leads reporting to the them.  Below is a brief description of the new structure.

For the first year, the Board decided to focus on the Retention and Volunteer committees, and then launch the Recruitment committee.   Robb Rabito has agreed to lead the Volunteer committee, but I’m still looking for a lead for the Retention committee.  We are also looking for additional members for each of the committees.  Our goal is to spread the work among the many instead of a few, so that the time commitment as a volunteer to the IACME is manageable.

Membership Committee – New Structure

1. Split the committee into three working subcommittees
   1. Recruitment – Works on recruiting new members
      1. Team lead
   2. Retention – Works on maintaining current members
      1. Team lead
   3. Volunteer Coordination
      1. Team lead – Robb Rabito
2. Define tasks for subcommittees
   1. Recruitment
      1. Create & keep current a marketing piece that can be used for
         1. placement on the website
         2. placed/handed out at registration table during educational conferences
         3. given to current members to use as a handout when promoting IACME
      2. Coordinate a mailing campaign
      3. Educational Conference Buddy – Add to registration brochure
         1. Assign a buddy for the day at the conference
            1. educate on what IACME is about
            2. introduce to other members
            3. answer questions
            4. lunch with
         2. Mentoring – new members
   2. Retention
      1. Follow up with members who do not renew membership
      2. Call/email personal note for renewing membership
      3. Mentoring – Advanced
      4. Promotion – Develop benefits sheet to go along with renewal form
   3. Volunteer Coordination
      1. Assign volunteers to position
      2. Recruit volunteers for open positions
      3. Maintain volunteer list
      4. Celebrate/thank volunteers
      5. Promotional piece

As anyone who has volunteered for an organization will tell you, your personal benefit will be more then the time you have given.  So please, join a committee, get involved, and have a great time doing it.  Contact Linda DuPont, 414.448.1112, linda.sue.dupont@aurora.org or more details or to join.

IACME ANNUAL SUMMER EDUCATIONAL MEETING - A SUCCESS!

The summer conference took place on Friday, May 21, 2011, at the Metropolis Theatre in Arlington Heights.  Close to 100 people were in attendance to listen to dynamic speakers along with several breakout presenters who addressed everything from the nitty gritty of accreditation criteria to where the future is taking us.  Details of the business meeting and ceremony can be found below.

IACME ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING AND AWARDS CEREMONY

2011 Election Results

Congratulations goes out to the 2011 new board members who were introduced at the meeting:

Mindi Daiga – 4 year term

ChadJackson – 4 year term

Kenneth Korber – 4 year term

Dr. Paul Ray – 4 year term

NEW 2010-2011 Board Officers

The following is a list of the new IACME officers: 

Michelle Adams - President

Diane Alberson - President-elect

Rebecca DeVivo – Immediate Past President

Rita LePard - Secretary

Kevin Heffernan - Treasurer

Award Winners

Congratulations goes out to

2011 Pearson Award Winner: Jeanette Harmon

2011 Volunteer Award Winner: Sigita Wolfe

IACME Presidential Gavel

Rebecca DeVivo, IACME’s 2010-2011 President

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!!

IACME and ISMS Collaborative Conference

Friday, October 14, 2011

Spearheading this effort on behalf of IACME and working on the event is Chris Presta, IACME Program Committee Chair.

GOING GREEN

Do you have ideas on how to “Go Green CME!” Please e-maililalliance@aol.com or join the discussion on LinkedIn. Go to: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1903150&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

The Reaccreditation Process: A Society’s Perspective

• What steps did you take internally prior to starting the self-study/reaccreditation process in order to help your organization prepare for the reaccreditation process?

We created the position of CME Compliance Coordinator well before time for the development of the self-study/reaccreditation.  This staff person was and is responsible for helping everyone involved in the development of continuing medical education collect relevant documentation for activity files and the self-study.  This individual stays on top of all things ACCME, to help ensure that we are conducting our educational activities in complete compliance.

• What were some of the key challenges that you encountered in completing the self study and/or reaccreditation process.   How did you deal with them?

The main challenge in completing the self-study was identifying appropriate documentation that actually demonstrates compliance with the accreditation criteria.  We are all accustomed to accumulating a great deal of paperwork, but when it comes to providing useful documentation that someone, who is unfamiliar with your programs can use and clearly understand – that is a bit more of a challenge.  It was helpful to have several people review both the activity files and the self-study to help ensure that the documentation that made it into these – clearly demonstrated what we were professing to have done.

• What are some of the lessons you learned that you would like to share with colleagues? Any recommendations? 

Procrastination is not a good thing.  When looking at the development of activity files and the self-study,you can always find something you’d like to do more than fine tune activity files and write the self-study, like tidying your desk, emptying the inbox you never empty, filing files that have been on your desk since 2004 – but this is a bad idea! 

It really makes sense to put together your activity file as you plan the activity.  You can even put the labels on documents to highlight the criteria being addressed by the documentation.  This way, once you complete the activity, all you have to do is drop in evaluation information and the final budget – sweet.

As for the self study, it is helpful to reach out to colleagues, who have written their self- study in the past year or so and ask permission to read it.  This may give you great ideas on how to demonstrate compliance –AND – you may walk away with best practices you hadn’t thought of before – bonus!

• Did anyone outside of your staff review your self-study?  If so, what value (if any) did this add?

In addition to the department and the Executive Director, we had surgeon members, who serve on the Workforce on Clinical Education review our self-study.  They were able to step back and review the document from a 30,000 foot perspective.  They provided excellent edits that helped fine tune the final product.

• If you achieved accreditation with commendation, what do you think made you successful?

We did receive accreditation with commendation.  I believe what made us successful was the fact that we were highly cognizant of the fact that ACCME accredits the organization, not just the education department.  We made certain the reviewers knew everything the Society does that has a positive impact on patient care and outcomes.  It’s important for providers to step back and look at the big picture of everything their organization does in this arena – and then tell the story!

• If you had an interview by phone, did everyone call in separately or did you have physician leaders with you in the same location? If you did, do you feel this made a difference in how the interview went?

We were only given the option to have the interview by phone.  We convened staff in a conference room and key physician leaders called in on a conference line.  The key here was preparation.  Having been through this process before, I took the time to brief everyone on it, to explain that the interview was like a fact-finding mission and that surveyors aren’t our enemy – they are seeking clarification and answers to questions that have come up as a result of reviewing the activity files and the self-study.  I explained that the interview was our opportunity to clarify where we may not have been clear in our documentation.  While an interview by phone made it impossible to read the expressions of the reviewers or to give non-verbal clues to our team not in the conference room with us – it ultimately was an efficient way to conduct the survey.

We invite you to take the time to answer one or all of these questions for yourself or on the IACME LinkedIn Discussion group, http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1903150.

This case will be posted as a fresh discussion for you to join.