The UEMS experience in continuous medical education accreditation process: a 'quo vadis' analysis of our global database

Michail Sideris; Kathrine S Rallis; Marios Nicolaides; Ashvin Kuri; Nadine Schottler; Nathalie Paulus; Orthmar Haas; Romuald Krajewski; Joao Grenho; Vassilios Papalois

doi:10.1097/MS9.0000000000001583

The UEMS experience in continuous medical education accreditation process: a 'quo vadis' analysis of our global database

Ann Med Surg (Lond). 2024 Jan 3;86(2):689-696. doi: 10.1097/MS9.0000000000001583. eCollection 2024 Feb.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London.
² Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
³ Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust, London.
⁴ Southampton General Hospital, Hampshire, England, UK.
⁵ European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS), Brussels, Belgium.
⁶ Group Practice Dr. Haas/Dr. Engler, Klagenfurt, Germany.
⁷ Head & Neck Cancer Department, Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology, Warsaw, Poland.
⁸ General Surgery Department, Hospital da Luz Oeiras, Oeiras, Portugal.
⁹ Imperial College London.

Abstract

Background: The authors systematically appraise a large database of continuous professional development (CPD) and continuous medical education (CME) events against the European Accreditation Council for Continuous Medical Education (EACCME) framework.

Methods: The authors performed a retrospective observational study of all CPD or CME events within the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) database between 2017 and 2019, including 91 countries and 6034 events. Assessment of event design, quality and outcomes was evaluated against a validated, expert-derived accreditation framework, using thematic analysis to extract distinct themes, and subsequent quantitative analysis.

Results: The authors included 5649 live educational events (LEEs) and 385 e-learning materials (ELMs). Three thousand seven hundred sixty-two [3762 (62.3%)] of the events did not report clear justification in their needs assessment process. Most accreditation applications claimed covering a single educational need [1603/2277 (70.3%)]. Needs assessments were reported to be similar across conferences, courses and other types of events (P<0.01); 5642/6034 events (93.5%) had clearly documented expected learning outcomes; only 978/6034 (16.2%) reported a single expected learning outcome while the rest report 2-10 outcomes. Providers who declared more than one educational need also declared multiple learning outcomes (ρ=0.051, P<0.01).

Conclusions: Despite EACCME providing a robust framework for the CPD/CME accreditation process, reporting quality can still be improved, as more than 1 in 2 events fail to provide a clear description of their needs assessment. To the authors' knowledge, this is the largest educational LEE/ELM database, which can be a starting to revisit the CME/CPD accreditation process.

Keywords: European Accreditation Council for Continuous Medical Education; European Union of Medical Specialists; continuous medical education; continuous professional development.