Using Hospital CME as a Strategic Resource

The American Hospital Association (AHA) published a report last week on how continuing medical education (CME) can be better utilized by hospitals as a strategic resource. In addition to using CME primarily for sharing medical knowledge, the AHA recommends it should also be used to develop “professional and institutional competencies that might be necessary to transform care, improve outcomes, and practice efficiently and effectively in the hospital setting.”

Hospitals spend almost $1 billion annually to fund CME, accounting for about 35 percent of all CME and 38 percent of all CME hours. Increasingly, hospitals are looking for ways to derive more value from those investments. In a recent survey, AHA members indicated there was significant room for improvement in areas such as emphasizing clinical integration, system-based care delivery, and communication across the continuum of care.

After examining the value that CME delivers to hospitals, the AHA published its findings in a 20-page report that includes insights on how to improve CME. In the report (available at the link below), the AHA identifies case studies that illustrate how hospitals are using CME to improve performance and better align the components of healthcare delivery.

The overarching theme of this report is an AHA call-to-action for “greater use of performance-based CME” to adapt to the changing landscape in healthcare delivery. You can download the AHA report at: http://www.ahaphysicianforum.org/cmereport