If you have attended any of the 300+ CME certified activities across our LSU campus each year, you may have noticed several activities offering both CME credit for physicians and CNE credit for nurses. These activities are planned with an intention to maximize the audience and credit that can be offered to benefit those attending. Interprofessional collaboration improves coordination, communication and, ultimately, the quality and safety of patient care.
Offering both CME and CNE credit is a result of a collaborative process between the schools of nursing and medicine. Nursing credit providers are approved by the American Nurses Credentialing Committee (ANCC) and AMA PRA Category 1™ credit can only be offered by certified medical education providers under the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). Both certifying organizations have the strict criteria for approval and both providers must demonstrate their ability to manage policies and process through a reaccreditation process every 5-6 years.
Several years ago, LSU CME and CNE began collaborating to create a seamless experience for course directors and learners. Working together, the offices created documents and processes that satisfied both their accrediting bodies’ needs. As the accreditation guidelines change, CME and CNE evolve to address the new criteria on jointly provided activities. “Our new CME commendation criteria encourages, among other initiatives, that providers develop activities with other health professions and community organizations to address population health issues. It is exciting to address important health issues by getting the healthcare team in the same learning activity. And working with CNE means we can have a greater impact-not only on improving care but achieving commendation criteria for our continued success,” said Laura Bell, Director of Continuing Medical Education for the School of Medicine.
From the planning process to the course wrap up and follow-up evaluation phase, LSU CNE and CME utilize the same documents and systems to make it a seamless efficient process. “The ability to discuss offering CNE credit in our initial planning stages is really important for many of our courses. Physicians and nurses work in teams and need to learn in teams. Expanding a course to offer nursing credit is really valuable and something we can easily manage working together.” said Clair Millet, DNP, APRN, PHCNS-BC, Director of Faculty Development, Continuing Nursing Education & Entrepreneurial Enterprise.
LSU CNE and CME share a network drive and easily exchange information through shared templates, graphics, etc. Clair Millet adds, “We work on various activities at various times and a shared drive is essential for document creation, reports, presentation reviews, and handouts. We don’t need to spend a lot of time emailing documents back and forth or keeping duplicate files. We use the same attendance reports to issue our respective certificates and same evaluation materials. It is a collaboration from the initial planning meetings until the activity wrap-up. ”