As part of our periodic How do you Palooza series (see our first blog entry here), I reached out to Wendy Macias at Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, TX, to line up one of our hard-hitting video interviews. Some people call me the Barbara Walters of our generation. Frankly, I always thought she was too nice.
Anyway, Wendy’s hospital was unfortunately in the midst of a site survey when I reached out to her, so she had to be on-call for that and didn’t want to commit to much else. Was she simply fearful of my probing questions? You can decide for yourself.
Wendy was, however, kind enough to share some thoughts on what she does to coordinate her team on Palooza days (our Fall meeting is coming up on Wednesday, October 21). Here is what she had to say:
I don’t do anything special to motivate really. When you send out the agenda with objectives, I review it to determine which match the educational needs and interests of my CME team (Committee, planners/ meeting coordinators, and CME compliance staff) based on their feedback and other discussions over the year. I highlight the sessions relevant to our program and activities. I include the why and indicate which roles might benefit from each session. I send reminders the day before.
Since CMEpalooza does not send out attendance certificates, I ask them to send me the name of the session they participated in and when they participated – live or recorded. CMEpalooza is not a twice a year resource for us, though.
Background as to why I need to do all of this:
We are state accredited vs national (ie, ACCME). Texas Medical Association recently added a requirement to the ACCME requirements – a structured CME committee with oversight for the CME Program that reviews and approves the CME Mission statement and other CME policies. This committee is comprised of target audience representatives.
I am a hospital-based provider in San Antonio. Methodist Healthcare has grown to 10 hospitals, plus we manage rural hospitals and provide outreach. We are a Division of HCA- 50/50 owned by them and Methodist Ministries. However, we are For-Profit.
I was asked to pursue Accreditation with Commendation when I became manager in 2007, so I lobbied and received approval to move my department under the System Chief Medical Officer (CMO). The MHS CMO at the time was a Baldridge Award surveyor, Dr. Ken Davis. He believed in aligning CME with quality. He wanted quality over quantity. This allowed me to change the structure of the CME Committee. My CME Committee includes:
- MHS CMO
- Our hospital CMOs (required by the MHS CMO to participate)
- System level VPs based on service lines (QI, Cardiology, Oncology, Neurosurgery, Women’s health, Bioethics, Ethics and Compliance, Quality Clinical Analytics, Medical Staff Services, Marketing, Physicians Reps). Each have a vested interest.
- RSS planners/meeting coordinators (addresses target audience physicians and nursing for team-based education)
- General counsel
When the commendation rules changed to require CME Team training with external opportunities, CMEpalooza became a key part of achieving that. Two primary reasons: limited budget and our CME committee has limited time.
CMEpalooza’s live and archived content helps me meet the educational needs and interest of this team while accommodating their time limits. The varied content addresses different roles in CME, CME educational formats, budget, and impact on learners.
I created internal SharePoints for each of type of CME Team roles. CMEpalooza’s website link is posted on all. This is why CMEpalooza is more than a twice a year resource for my team.
