It’s Friday, and to welcome you to the (almost) weekend, we bring back our Spring intern Katie to share some thoughts:

So who submitted their comments to the ACCME regarding proposed changes to the Standards for Commercial Support at the very last second on Friday? (Derek and Scott look at each other and shrug sheepishly)

We sure did — sorry ACCME! I had several discussions with my team, watched the CME Coalition’s recent webinar, and surveyed the Alliance’s Hospital Health Systems section, all to make sure everyone’s feedback was represented. I heard many different perspectives during the course of my research, and one general consensus I noticed was that there needs to be clarification on a lot of the terms being proposed.

My favorite comments were around the new phrase, “accredited continuing education.” How can you remove the word MEDICAL?? Getting personal here, but I love to say that I work in education and healthcare. Continuing Medical Education is a term I never knew existed until I was in it, but these are the words that represent who I am! I AM CME! “I am ACE!” just doesn’t sound as exciting.

Personal rant over.

All in all, I found that most people I heard from were supportive of the proposed changes and just wanted clarification on a few items. We all are reading the same words, but we all have different programs and processes, and trying to navigate what the new proposed terminology means for each of us is hard.

I look forward to seeing what the ACCME finalizes after the comments are considered and possibly incorporated. Maybe the ACCME will put together an FAQ or update the Compliance Library once the new standards are out that puts some of the new terminology in context. When they introduced this feature for the current standards, it was a game changer for me and super helpful.

And, well, not to toot our own horn, but we have a session in the CMEpalooza Spring agenda that will do a much more comprehensive job of spelling out the community’s thoughts on the new proposed standards.

Derek loves regaling his kids with stories of his dating prowess as a young man.

“Will you…” “No!”

“I was wondering if…” “Wonder no more, chap. The answer is a defiant negative.”

“Do you…” “Ew! Beat it, you creep!” (yes, this particular young woman watched too many early ’80s sitcoms)

Fortunately for our fine feathered friend, he persevered, continually dusting himself off, getting back onto the proverbial horse (or maybe it was an actual horse – I wasn’t there), and continuing in his search for a date to join him for Friday night’s pottery class. Derek made some killer ashtrays for mom and dad back in his day.

His experience (and, well, let’s face it, mine too) serve us well each spring and fall as we invite prospective faculty for our various CMEpalooza sessions and gird for a round of rejections. Fortunately, we hear more yesses than nos (I credit the Aqua Velva aftershave I apply each morning). And while the nos still hurt, they don’t hurt quite as much.

Nonetheless, as we post the agenda each spring and fall, there is often the “Additional faculty to be announced” placeholder as we try to find the best fits for each of our sessions. It happens every spring (and fall too).

With that little tidbit out of the way, it’s time for today’s big announcement:

WE HAVE A SPRING AGENDA!

Yes, that’s right folks, just ignore the “Additional panelists to be announced” and the “TBDs” that pop up here and there. They’ll go away soon enough. Instead, focus on another dynamite lineup of topics that we’ve lined up. Every year you think, “Boy, these guys are thinking outside the box” and that box gets a little bit stranger.

We’ve got REM references, a nod to Schoolhouse Rock!, and of course, the return of our favorite CME Detective, Jake Powers. So take a look, block off your calendar for the day, and prepare for another educational feast. Perhaps if you ask nicely, Derek will even make you a customized ashtray once he fires up his kiln.

One day last week, Derek and I were exchanging emails about some nonsense topic (it’s amazing how much time we spend on this every week), when I responded to something he wrote with, “We just need to figure out how to do it differently than those other moolyaks.”

Moolyak? What’s a moolyak? Frankly, I couldn’t even remember where I pulled it from, but I knew it wasn’t a phrase I created myself. So off to the trusty Interwebs I went, and tada! — it was from one of my all-time favorite Cheers skits where Cliff offers a story about ritual circumcision. Watch till the end – it kills me every time.

Anyway, “moolyak” is not a term I use often. Frankly, I can’t remember using it recently at all outside of this email. Perhaps it was because I had just come from a bris a few days before and my subconscious pulled up the phrase. Have at that, psychotherapists of the world!

What’s important, though, isn’t to think too deeply about these topics but rather to focus on Derek’s response. He didn’t say, “What’s a moolyak?” He was able to use those fancy things called “context clues” to figure it out. I could have wrote “ding-dongs” or “beetlebrains” or “ninnies” or any one of a number of colorful adjectives instead of moolyak and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Let’s now tie things back to CME by taking a look at something that’s been in the our industry’s news a bit in the last week – the Outcomes Standardization Project (OSP). We had a session in the Fall of 2018 as this group was ramping up their efforts, and they have done impressive work. There is a comprehensive website that is now available with a variety of resources, and just last week, an article was published in the Journal of European CME that looked at the progress of this consortium of experts over the last 3 years. We are even acknowledged at the end of the article among those who have “provided meaningful contributions.” Why Derek’s name appears before mine, I am not certain, but let’s overlook that insulting error for now (note from Derek: [exchanges a knowing nod with the reader]).

Every few years, there is a call to “standardize” something in CME. For instance, a few years ago, there was some brief momentum to standardize grant submission portals. We all know how that went. The OSP team has certainly done much better, and produced something that might, might be valuable to our community. After years of hearing people throw around outcomes terms that some in our industry simply assumed meant the same thing to everyone, they realized that, no, there are a lot of different interpretations of some really basic vocabulary and well, goshdarnit, we should do something about it.

Now that the brunt of the OSP’s initial work is complete, they have offered to us how they believe specific common outcomes terms such as “participant” and “learner” and “completer” should be defined. They have even have included terms which I would have though were somewhat obvious such as “pre-test” and “follow-up assessment.” This group has done a lot of hard work with undoubtedly hours of conference calls and emails behind them, but really, the hardest work is still to come. It basically comes down to the question, “Will anyone care?”

We have likely all heard about how it takes approximately 17 years for medical research evidence to be adopted into clinical practice. It’s a number that is startling. We all often educate the medical community about the latest and greatest, yet the truth is that it’s going to take many years and many repetitions before a large part of our audience even considers changing their practice how we and our faculty might suggest.

So is the CME community going to be any different? Do we want to be any different? Are there those among us who will decide, “You know what, I am going to change how I determine when a learner has actually completed an activity now?” or will we simply fall back upon the definition we have always set within our organization?

To their credit, the folks who make up the OSP seem to understand the challenge before them. In their recent article, they highlighted the importance of consensus-building and outreach throughout the CME community to get all-important buy-in. It won’t be easy, for example, to convince company XYZ that their “1000 learners and 500 completers” based upon their internal definitions must now be revised to “500 learners and 250 completers” with the OSP’s new proposed definition. When funding dollars are potentially at stake, there is undoubtedly going to be pushback. “If company XYZ isn’t revising their internal definitions, why should I?” That sort of thing. We’ll see if some of the major players in the world decide to become trendsetters or naysayers.

In the meantime, go have a beer with your favorite moolyak. You can send Derek the bill.