A blog post from The CMS Blog reports "In order to provide time for organizations to prepare for data submission and to sufficiently address the important input we received during the rulemaking process, CMS will not require data collection by applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations before January 1, 2013."

The entire post can be seen here: http://blog.cms.gov/2012/05/03/information-on-implementation-of-the-physician-payments-sunshine-act/

Member Julie  Brown, CCMEP, Executive Director, Professional Education and Executive Medical Director, Dr. Richard Beaser, among other Joslin faculty were contributing authors to a new book published by Springer called “Great Health Care: Making it Happen”. 

The chapter they contributed to focused on Diabetes care and prevention and the importance of a sustained, continuing focus on education and quality improvement which featured the Joslin Professional Education  Continuum (JPEC) longitudinal performance improvement focused model for CME.

See all books published by SACME members here.

Health care access, cost, quality, and outcomes can vary greatly from one community to the next - both within states and across states - depending on the performance of the health care system available to residents, according to the first-ever local health system scorecard, released today by The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Access the full report here, including measures of 306 local U.S. areas on key health care indicators such as insurance coverage, preventive care, mortality rates, potentially avoidable hospital use, and costs. An interactive map accompanying the report allows comparison of cities and communities across the U.S.

The Director of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Division of Education, Ajit K. Sachdeva, MD, FACS, FRCSC, recently received the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) Award for Outstanding Contributions to Healthcare Simulation.  The award recognizes Dr. Sachdeva’s innovative work and national leadership in advancing simulation-based education and training. Several major accomplishments of Dr. Sachdeva were mentioned, including his leadership in establishing the ACS Program for Accreditation of Education Institutes (Simulation Centers).

Dr. Sachdeva, a Member of SACME since 2002, has participated in the Harvard Macy Institute Program for Leaders in Medical Education. Before joining the ACS, Dr. Sachdeva was the Leon C. Sunstein, Jr., Professor of Medical and Health Science Education and Professor and Vice-Chairman for Educational Affairs, Department of Surgery, at the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, PA.  He was also Associate Dean for Medical Education and Director of the Academic Center for Educational Excellence at that institution.  In addition, Dr. Sachdeva served as Chief of Surgical Services at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center for more than eight years.  He has received many prestigious awards for his landmark contributions to surgical and medical education and has served as president of several national professional organizations.

SSH, a multidisciplinary national organization with a sizable international membership, promotes simulation to achieve excellence in medical, surgical, and health care education, and in practice and research.  

The SACME response to the Physician Payment Sunshine Act on transparency can be found on the attached document. 

SACME Response

The AAFP response is also provided:

AAFP Response

Please see SACME's draft response to CMS regarding the Sunshine Act rules. Please review and add your comments (see Add Comment if logged in) or email your comments to gwest@annenberg.net by 2/15/12.

SACME_Final draft to CMS Rule on PPSA.doc

SACME is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $250,000 grant from Pfizer for a project entitled, "Advancing Healthcare through Research and Capacity Building in CME/CPD." This grant will enable SACME to accelerate pursuit of its research agenda, by funding two foundational projects:

1) Clarification of taxonomy and nomenclature, which will facilitate practice as well as provide structure for future research;
2) A review of the current state of research in CME/CPD to identify gaps and research opportunities.
 
The impetus for the grant grew out of SACME’s work on the Consensus Project. That Project identified these 2 areas as most pressing for CME research. They will provide a solid foundation for future research in the field. 

In mid-February, the grant team will meet to finalize a project timeline and develop requests for proposals to address these two research project areas. 

 

CMS has released their proposed rules for the Physician Payment Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act).   These rules have now been published and CMS is asking for comment.  The comments are due no later than February 17, 2012.  Many have not recognized the potentially significant impact these rules could have on CME offices and institutions.  Each member might want to examine the rules and determine its impact on them and their respective institutions.  SACME is formulating a response in hopes of ensuring that the new rules, among other things, appropriately distinguish between accredited CME and other educational or promotional activities. SACME leadership would also encourage members to draft and submit their own responses.

The SACME draft response will be distributed to members by the end of the day on 2/10/12. If you have comments you would like to share with the group drafting the SACME response, please submit them to the attention of Gordon West (gwest@annenberg.net) or on the listserv no later than Wednesday evening, February 15.  Comments from SACME members will then be taken into account in developing the final draft for submission to CMS. Thank you.

View Physician Payment Sunshine Act.

The RIME Section Steering Committee requested and received approval for a name change from the GEA Steering Committee this year. The new name for the section is Medical Education Scholarship, Research, and Evaluation Section.

We requested a name change to distinguish our group from the annual AAMC RIME conference;  members expressed confusion about the relationship of the two groups.

1) The Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Section of the GEA (formerly RIME section) 
The Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Section of the GEA represents all those interested in medical education research and scholarship and embraces multiple methods  including quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods approaches.  Participation is open to ALL interested members and began in 1998 when GEA initiated four sections (UME, GME, CME and Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation [formerly RIME]).

Section Mission Statement:
The mission of the Section for Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation is to enhance the quality of research in medical education and to promote its application to educational practice.

Section Goals:
The goals of the Section are to advance medical education research and scholarship by:

• promoting scholarship and application of new knowledge;
• improving the quality of training in medical education research and fostering the continued development of researchers;
• facilitating collaboration among individuals representing a broad range of disciplines who contribute to scholarship in medical education;
• facilitating the exchange of research findings, disseminating the results of this research, and encouraging their application to educational practice.
• creating learning opportunities for members
• responding to member suggestions for innovative learning activities

The Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Steering Committee is comprised of  the chair (Summers Kalishman, PhD), the past or chair elect (Steve Durning, MD, PHD), the four regional chairs (Diane Wayne, MD, CGEA; Eileen Cichoskikelly, PhD, NEGEA; Scott Cottrell, PhD SGEA, and Sebastian Uijtdehaage, PhD WGEA), the chair of the RIME Conference Program Planning Committee (Ann Fyre, PhD, the chair or representative of MERC (Barry Issenberg, MD), the chair of the Nominating Committee (Paul Hemmer, MD), the chair of the Faculty Development Committee (Maria Blanco, PhD), and the chair or chair elect of GEA (Brian Mavis, PhD) and staff representation from the AAMC (Caroline Coleman).

2) The RIME conference has been in existence since 1961. Research and scholarship in medical education is presented at the conference in the form of posters, papers and oral abstracts. The RIME Conference Program Planning Committee is responsible for the planning, implementation and evaluation of the Research in Medical Education Annual meeting. The Committee members, with the guidance and support of staff members from the AAMC, have several responsibilities, including to:

• plan the structure of the meeting;
• issue the calls for submissions;
• review the submissions for research presentations and symposia; 
• provide constructive feedback to authors on all submissions;
• identify areas of research methods and skills that would benefit from development.

Members of the RIME Program Planning Committee are elected every year with one-third of the membership changing. The names for the Committee are provided by the Medical Education Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Section Nominating Committee. The work of the RIME Planning Committee is independent of the Section, but the Chair of the RIME Planning Committee sits on the Section steering committee.

Process Used for Name Change: The Section asked members in each of its regions to provide suggested names for our Section during the spring 2011 regional meetings. We compiled the suggested from members from the four regions. Members of the Section Steering Committee discussed and identified a new name for the Section from among them:   Medical Education Scholarship, Research, and Evaluation which was presented to the GEA Steering and approved and implementation begun with the November 2011 AAMC meeting.

Tanya Horsley, PhD, of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, has transitioned to the role of Assistant Director for the Centre for Learning in Practice effective December 11, 2011.