Mission Statement

Purpose

The purpose of Continuing Medical Education is to maintain and improve physician competency to optimize patient care  by means of offering quality learning experiences for physicians.  These activities should permit physicians to fulfill CME requirements for relicensure, maintenance of certification, hospital privileges and medical or specialty society membership.

Content Areas

The CME content encompasses that body of knowledge and skills generally recognized and accepted by the profession as within the basic medical sciences, the discipline of clinical medicine and the provision of health care to the public.  The content of each activity is based on the perceived and documented needs of a specific or target group. The objectives of activities are expressed in terms of measurable outcomes and link the needs to the desired results.  Recommendations for patient care are evidence-based and free of commercial bias. Specific areas of content to be addressed include health issues of particular importance to the population on Long Island, e.g., geriatrics, HIV/AIDS, breast and colorectal cancer, primary care, as well as the ACGME/ABMS general (core) physician competencies, e.g., professionalism and related ethical/medico-legal topics.The content also frequently includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, clinical research and training the trainers.

Type of Activities

The School of Medicine, through its Office of Continuing Medical Education, will sponsor, co-sponsor or jointly sponsor Continuing Medical Education (CME) activities including regularly scheduled conferences, courses and enduring materials.  The methods of instruction are varied to offer different types of learning experiences, appealing to diverse and individual learning styles and practice setting requirements.  They include live conferences; interactive audio, video and electronic programs; self-study materials and hands-on training, e.g., procedural skills training, simulations, standardized patients.

The School of Medicine is the only medical school in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.  The population of the two counties is close to 3 million people.  The number of practicing physicians is 11,959.  These physicians are a primary group for the medical school to address in Continuing Medical Education in order to spare these physicians excessive travel and loss of time from practice.  The School of Medicine also contributes to improvement of the quality of health care nationally through its educational leadership and provision of CME activities for physicians throughout the country.

In addition to providing undergraduate medical education, the School of Medicine must inculcate in medical students and residents the awareness of the continuing need for learning throughout their professional careers.  To reinforce this principle, the School must demonstrate its commitment to continuing education through provision of resources to support its CME mission.  There will be linkage and collaboration across the continuum of education, encompassing medical students, GME and CME.

Expected Results

Multiple methods will be used to determine and continuously improve our effectiveness in meeting identified educational needs, e.g. pre-post testing, self reported or observed changes in competence, self-reported or chart audited changes in practice, chart audit or patient survey changes in patient outcomes, etc.  Both qualitative and quantitative approaches will be incorporated to assess changes in knowledge, competency, or performance or patient outcomes. The expected results of the evaluation of the overall program will be determined by measuring progress towards meeting selected benchmarks and will be used to guide improvements.  Specifically these benchmarks include evidence-based measures promulgated by: medical/specialty society practice guidelines, recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (e.g., Medicare criteria for quality improvement), RAND quality of health studies.

Content of this page provided by Christine Ryan