ACCME Commendation Criteria Review: Optimizes Technical/Procedural Skills
Whether you are an accredited provider such as i3 Health or you are an educational partner working with an accredited provider, it's still important to understand the criteria that underlie continuing medical education (CME) activities. This is part of a periodic series of posts looking at what each criterion means in general and what it might mean for you.
The third set of ACCME commendation criteria are focused on skills and skills-based learning. "Enhances Skills" contains four criteria, all of which may or may not be easily attainable depending on the organization in which you provide education.
Optimizes Technical Procedural Skills (formerly C30) states:
The provider designs CME to optimize technical and procedural skills of learners.
Technical and procedural skills are those hands-on skills that health care providers must have. The most obvious examples are the skills surgeons need, but all providers have some sort of hands-on component to their work. This could be the use of a device such as an ultrasound machine or even something as basic as a stethoscope. All components of the physical examination of a patient fall into this category of technical and procedural skills. Resuscitation and critical incident management requires technical and procedural skills. So at first glance, this criterion may seem difficult for your organization, but it is possible that you are already creating activities that are focused on technical and procedural skills.
There are three critical elements in this criterion.- You need to have some activities that are designed to address technical and/or procedural skills. The exact skills addressed are based on the needs of your learners
- Those activities need to include evaluation of the learners' technical and/or procedural skills. The facilitators need to observe the learners in action. This can be in person or over video, but it can't be just a posttest or looking at the results of a hands-on procedure
- The facilitators must use those evaluations to provide formative feedback. This has to be more than a pass or fail. There should be suggestions and the opportunity to try again, taking that feedback into account
References
ACCME (2020). Accreditation Criteria. Available at: https://www.accme.org/accreditation-rules/accreditation-criteria
ACCME (2021). Optimizes Technical/Procedural Skills. Available at: https://www.accme.org/accreditation-rules/accreditation-criteria/optimizes-technicalprocedural-skills
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