Flint Township View

Hurley receives six-year accreditation




FLINT — The Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS) Committee on CME Accreditation recently awarded the Hurley Medical Center Institute for Continuing Medical Education six-years of Accreditation with Commendation as a provider of category 1 Continuing Medical Education (CME) activities.

The accreditation will run through September of 2017. Of the 55 CME providers in the state, Hurley Medical Center is one of only six to achieve “Commendation” status.

To find out more about Hurley’s CME program, please visit: www.education.hurleymc.com/cme.

Under the direction of Michael Boucree, MD, Chief Quality Officer and Chair of the Medical Staff Education Committee (MSEC), Hurley Medical Center met the 15 basic and seven commendation criteria as required and reviewed by MSMS.

For the latest four-year review program (2007-2011), Hurley’s CME program provided 126 activities to 13,278 participants; 1483.75 hours of continuing medical education Category I credits were provided through these activities.

The Hurley CME program is governed by the Medical Staff Education Committee (MSEC), a committee of the Professional Staff Organization (Medical Staff), established in the Medical Staff bylaws (see below).As an accredited provider of CME for physicians, the Hurley Medical Center Institute for Continuing Medical Education is bound by stringent regulations that monitor the credibility of programs and assure they are provided without commercial bias from the speakers.

The purpose of CME is to provide physicians programs to enhance their knowledge, competence, and performance — ultimately to improve patient outcomes. Physicians in Michigan are required to obtain a prescribed number of CME hours (150 in a three year period) to maintain their medical licenses. The Hurley CME program, located at www.education.hurleymc.com/cme, has been accredited for more than 15 years and is currently funded through a portion of the medical staff dues.

The CME Department conducts a Needs Assessment each year to ascertain physician desires for topics, professional practice “gaps” to be filled, and type of CME educational session; e.g. live session, on line, full-day, half-day, etc.

The Hurley CME program implemented many improvements over the past four years, including improved compliance requirements for Regularly Scheduled Series (formerly known as Grand Rounds); annual medical staff funding for CME derived from medical staff dues; three and six month surveys post-CME activity for ongoing measurement of knowledge, competence and performance; an on-line calendar; and a speaker honoraria policy to assure consistency in payments for speakers. Additionally, the CME program has added focus on physician knowledge, competence, performance, and patient outcomes to take our program to deeper levels.

The “commendation” component of the CME Accreditation required Hurley to extend the “reach” of CME to meaningful integration. This reach was accomplished through:

 Collaboration with key organizations to improve health outcomes in our community, including the Genesee County Health Department, Community Mental Health, Greater Flint Infectious Disease Forum, and the Genesee County Dental Society, among others;

 Positioning ourselves to be influential in many areas through community leadership positions held by MSEC members;

 Utilizing non-educational strategies to enhance professional change, evidenced by our performance improvement in the National Patient Safety Goals;Working in the community to address patient outcome factors outside our control such as childhood obesity and patient smoking habits.

 The newly awarded six-year accreditation marks the beginning of a new journey for our CME program. There are many future plans, including:

 The use of CME to educate physicians on Epic to improve patient safety & quality of care

 Electronic CME and enduring materials to lengthen the life of our educational sessions

 Greater focus on the professional practice gaps, objectives, and outcomes for our programsContinuing our strong RSS (grand rounds) programs. — G.G.


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