Live Event Planning Guide

• The activity must not simply be meant to provide “education for education’s sake.” It should be produced to increase physician knowledge/competence, change physician performance (influence behavior), and/or improve patient outcomes.
• Therefore, the activity must be planned to address an identified professional practice gap and the educational needs that underlie the gaps.
• The format of the activity should consider appropriate teaching and learning methods that will best achieve the learning objectives.
• The target audience must be identified, and the educational content delivered must be directly related to what the intended audience does in their professional practice. It must also be linked to specific physician competencies.
• The activity must be evaluated to determine its effectiveness at closing the educational gap.
• Planning must be independent of commercial influence. All persons, including planning committee members and faculty presenters, who are in a position to control CME content must disclose all relevant financial relationships with a commercial interest.

1. Develop the Activity Plan

As you plan the CME activity, you must incorporate these ACCME requirements. As you are working through these steps, ask yourself and the planning team the questions in italics:

1. Identify specific practice gaps and educational needs to inform your planning of topics and selection of speakers. The ACCME defines a practice gap as “the difference between what the professional is doing or accomplishing compared to what is achievable on the basis of current professional knowledge.” What is the problem you are trying to address with your activity?
2. Provide the sources you used to identify these practice gaps and educational needs. These could be newly published clinical practice guidelines or journal articles, quality improvement data, departmental discussion minutes, or other documentation of learner needs. How do you know the practice gap is present?
3. Write specific measurable objectives of what you believe the learners will be able to know how to do (competence), do (performance), or impact (patient outcomes) as a result of your CME activity. These learning objectives should be designed to close the gap you identified in Step 1. What are you seeking to change? [write the objective from the perspective of what the learner will do and not what the teacher will teach].
4. Choose an educational format to achieve your objectives and close your identified gap. CME activities should be designed for active learning. Consider utilizing cases, hands-on practice, and ancillary tools to help learners realize these goals. What type of activity do you think will best achieve your goals?
5. Create an evaluation plan to measure learner competence and/or skill; performance; or patient outcomes. How will you know if you achieved your goals?
   • Skills/competence is typically measured through surveys—conducted at the end of the activity, which measures an intent to change.
   • Performance may be measured through peer observation, submission of case studies, or follow-up surveys about actual change in practice—usually conducted 2-4 months after the activity.
   • Patient outcomes may be measured through quality improvement data, chart audits, or patient surveys. 
6. Link your plan to one or more Institute of Medicine or ACGME Physician Competencies. 

2. Complete the annual Event Application

• If you are applying for a NEW Live Activity, you must first complete a pre-application. Once your pre-application has been submitted, a meeting will be scheduled with the CME Associate Director to discuss preliminary information for your activity. We will also determine the activity’s eligibility for CME accreditation and assign you a CME Program Coordinator from the OCME. The pre-application is available at:  CME  Pre-Application
• Please note the following application deadlines to receive CME accreditation consideration.

 Application Deadlines:

• Once you have met with the CME Associate Director, if your activity is eligible to be accredited, you will receive a link to the CME CME Fee Schedule event application via our learning management system, CME Tracker.
• Use the information derived from Step 1 to complete the application in our CME Tracker web-based system.
• Complete financial relationship disclosure forms for ALL planning committee members.
• Complete, sign and submit the along with your application. This must be received before the CME application review begins.

3. The Event Application will be reviewed by the CME staff and Director.

1. Select and confirm meeting date(s) at least 6 months prior to the activity start date if meeting management services are requested, at least 4 monts prior to the activity start date if only accreditation services are requested, and at least 2 months prior to the activity start date if this is a professional development activity without clinical content (e.g., leadership, teacher training). Please provide a program agenda with the start/end session times. This is required to determine the maximum credit to be approved/awarded so the accreditation statement is correct. Once approved, you will NOT be able to change your date(s) for the event.
2. Review the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education.
3. Disclose his/her financial relationships with ineligible companies via the Planner Financial Relationship Disclosure Form. If the Activity Director/Planner has financial relationships with any ineligible company, these must be mitigated or managed by Emory CME staff and a non-conflicted planner prior to developing the live activity. There should be a written description of the process used to mitigate or manage all conflicts of interest. If mitigation of a potential conflict of interest is required, your CME coordinator will send you the link to complete the review. All planner disclosures must be received, reviewed and approved prior to your application approval by the CME office.
4. Select knowledgeable individuals to serve on a Planning Committee for the activity.  All members of the Planning Committee must disclose their financial relationships with ineligible companies via the Financial Relationship Disclosure Form. If any member of the Planning Committee has financial relationships with any ineligible company, these must be mitigated or managed by the Course Director and a non-conflicted planner working with the OCME staff prior to developing the activity.  
5. Document the processes and resources that the planning committee used to identify professional practice gaps and to determine the educational needs of the target audience. Provide committee minutes and documents (journal articles, national practice guidelines, etc) used to document the gaps and needs.
6. State the identified needs and learner objectives as well as how the educational activity will meet the learners’ needs.
7. Identify appropriate, knowledgeable speakers invite them to speak at the event. Note it is the responsibility of the activity director(s), not the CME office, to send speaker invitations. In the invitation letters to speakers, identify the content and the objectives of their presentation. Upon identification of potential speakers, please confirm their commitment to participate in the activity. A final speaker list is due 60 days in advance of the activity to allow time to collect all financial disclosures and if needed, mitigate disclosed relationships. Your assigned CME coordinator will send the financial disclosure request to each speaker if applicable.. Faculty are given two weeks from date of receipt to provide their disclosure information. While CME will assist in sending out disclosure forms, Course Directors may have to provide support in ensuring that all potential faculty have sent their disclosure information to the coordinator in a timely fashion. Speakers with delayed submission jeopardize the ability of the OCME to mitigate disclosure information and ultimately, provide approval for the activity. Mitigation of potential conflicts of interest requires strict adherence to compliance of the ACCME’s Standards of Integrity and Independence. IMPORTANT: All speaker disclosures must be received no less than 30 days prior to the activity start date to allow time for mitigation if needed. If a speaker’s financial disclosure is not received 30 days prior to the start of the event, that speaker is not eligible to participate in the accredited CME activity and must be recused from participating.
8. Once disclosure information has been collected from the speaker by the OCME coordinator, the Course Director (or, if the course director has conflicts of interest, the non-conflicted planner) must mitigate or manage all identified conflicts of interest for speakers who have disclosed any/all financial relationships with any ineligible companies. There should be a written description of the process used to mitigate or manage all conflicts of interest.  OCME staff will  assist with this process. The learners must be informed of any disclosures made by speakers BEFORE the start of each session. You must include a disclosure statement in your communications with your learner. This applies in instances with  disclosed financial relationships, no disclosed financial relationships and/or if the content is non-clinical. Your CME coordinator will provide you with the correct disclosure statement to use.
9. (Optional) Identify potential Commercial Supporters; if commercial support (such as education grants from ineligible companies) is to be obtained, this must be done in conjunction with the OCME, and signed Letters of Agreement (LOA) must be completed by the OCME before accepting the support. All LOAs MUST be signed by the OCME authorized signer. No one else can sign in place of the CME authorized signer. All signed and countersigned LOAs should be sent to OCME prior to the activity start date.
10. It is the responsibility of the Course Director to decide on how the activity is to be evaluated. The OCME will send all attendees the standard CME evaluation via CME Tracker. The purpose of the OCME evaluation form is to assess how learners will change their practice as a result of the activity, and whether commercial bias was evident during the activity. Directors may choose to send additional evaluations of individual speakers or for other purposes such as collecting QI data on patient outcomes related to the education – additional evaluations are the responsibility of the department. You will be asked to share results with the OCME in the post meeting wrap up.
11. Provide oversight to ensure all material related to the activity are timely received.
    1. Final speaker lists and agenda (due 60 days in advance of the event)
    2. The invitation/correspondence with each speaker.. Speaker invitations and confirmations should be completed when sending the faculty/speaker names to OCME.
    3. Marketing flyer or promotional piece used to advertise your activity
    4. The speakers’ completed disclosure forms
    5. Financial relationship mitigation forms, if needed
    6. How the learners were informed of the disclosure
    7. The completed evaluation forms and analysis of the results
    8. Signed and dated Letter of Agreement for Commercial Support as executed by the CME office (if applicable)
    9. Page from course materials where you acknowledge the receipt of commercial support (if applicable)
12. Communicate with CME Associate Director and assigned CME coordinator regarding any updates such as change in Activity Director, cancellation or rescheduling of a meeting. Please note, there is a $750 cancellation fee for any activity that cancels after the activity has been approved for CME accreditation.
13. Provide material to document compliance with all requirements for information requested by OCME.

The OCME will monitor the activity for compliance with ACCME policies. If the required documentation to demonstrate ACCME compliance is not received in a timely manner, your activity(ies) will be at risk of not being accredited or accreditation will be withdrawn.

 The ACCME defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

1. Collaborate with your CME coordinator on all required documentation.
2. Meet with the Emory CME staff to review administrative changes/updates. 
3. Review ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education
4. Complete Tutorial Modules (Coming soon!)
5. Manage the completion & submission of CME certification documents.
   • The web-based event application MUST be received and approved PRIOR TO the start of your activity.
   • Collect and upload with your application all Planner Financial Disclosure forms and submit as part of the web-based event application.
   • CME will collect and  upload with your application all speaker Financial Disclosure forms and submit as part of the web-based event application.
6. • Assist the CME staff if needed with collecting Faculty financial disclosure forms and presentation slides
   • Finalize identification and mitigation of all planner and speaker relevant financial relationships using the Mitigation Worksheet

6. Provide instructions for text-in attendance or claiming online credit to your audience 

1. Although text in attendance and online credit claim is available, we may have to refer to you for backup documentation should a learner request credit that we may not have on record.
2. Answer general questions from learners related to the activity.

9. Provide reports and data from evaluation results if different from standard evaluation.

1. The Course Director and the CME office will work closely together should an issue or concern arise.

If the required documentation to meet with ACCME compliance is not received in a timely manner, your activity(ies) will be at risk of not being accredited or accreditation will be withdrawn.

1. An application is required for each activity seeking CME accreditation.
2. An activity must be officially approved before CME credits can be awarded or advertised.
3. Emory School of Medicine OCME cannot retroactively provide CME credits as mandated by the ACCME.