Navigating Relevance in Interprofessional Accredited Continuing Medical Education .

Cynthia Ogaz, Managing Director for the Office of Continuing Medical Education at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Working alongside individuals dedicated to their professional growth has been an incredible privilege. I recognize the importance of empowering learners to become independent by learning. Identifying adult learners who are self-motivated and self-directive to learn by experience will develop an effective accredited continuing education. Our approach emphasizes identifying needs and tailoring relevant, evidence-based, accredited interprofessional educational interventions through need assessments. The goal is to detect the needs of the healthcare team and have the interventions that allow them to learn together and from one another. Relying on need assessments conducted on your target audience, quality improvement reports, and evaluation summaries from past educational interventions opens the door to creating relevant, up-to-date continuing education. These assessment surveys need to have the right questions for the learner to depict the problem, the underlying cause of the problem, and how to address the issue at hand. A professional practice gap is often addressed with an accredited continuing education but might open the door to a new barrier to address. A key component to developing strategies that facilitate an effective educational intervention is investing in the professional development of those interprofessional continuing education professionals representing accredited providers that lead interprofessional accredited continuing education. A trained interprofessional continuing educational professional will consistently learn and develop their skills to generate meaningful and transformative accredited interprofessional continuing education. An interprofessional continuing education professional can do this by doing a needs assessment followed by a well-professional developing plan to address areas of improvement.

At Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), a noteworthy achievement was obtaining Joint Accreditation. This prestigious accreditation facilitates the production of accredited interprofessional continuing education. Most importantly, this initiative allows the healthcare team members to learn together and opens the door for collaboration. Joint Accreditation empowers TTUHSC to innovate and bring the much-needed unified application process to advance this institution's growth. This much-needed accreditation was essential to TTUHSC, a multidisciplinary health sciences center dedicated to creating a collaborative healthcare team. As the managing director for the Office of Accredited Interprofessional Continuing Medical Education at TTUHSC and appointed as the lead to this initiative, obtaining such accreditation has fulfilled a long-term career goal. This was possible due to the commitment of my staff and our program's course directors, planners, and stakeholders. The commitment to develop evidence-based continuing education to change skills and performance provided the information needed to obtain this accreditation.

However, challenges arise, particularly in evaluating the impact of educational interventions. When creating accredited continuing education, it is imperative to develop different ways to assess the effects of an educational intervention. Many accredit providers need help collecting data to evaluate the impact and the change in skills/strategies and performance. Multiple evaluation formats can be implemented to overcome such challenges and capture changes in the healthcare team's skills/techniques and performance. Also, using three to six impact surveys, assessing the outcomes of these accredited educational interventions is essential to demonstrate that the TTUHSC Interprofessional Continuing Medical Education program is meeting its mission.

To fellow professionals, my advice is to strive for success and growth with the help of your team. Understand that your team extends beyond your staff to include stakeholders, learners, planners, community, and leaders. Identify those willing to work together to develop interventions that bring about positive societal changes. Embrace a lifelong learning approach.