These CME activities are eligible for consideration of CME accreditation:
- Courses, conferences and similar CME activities planned by the organization applying for accreditation, that meet the Association’s Approved List of “Type of Accredited Organization”.
- CME workshops or small group activities.
- Seminar series, hospital grand-rounds (regularly scheduled activities), or similar recurring educational events held by the providers and their subsidiaries.
- Activities of a larger scope, such as International Conferences, Specialty Society meetings and similar activities.
These CME activities are NOT eligible for consideration of CME accreditation:
- CME activities that are not in medicine or healthcare are not eligible for accreditation, such as: Healthcare management, healthcare IT, healthcare/hospital architecture/design, life science, pharmaceutical education, OSHA courses, and related are ELIGIBLE for accreditation.
APPLYING FOR CREDITS FOR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES:
We provides 2 types of CME Accreditation: 1) Full Accreditation; and 2) Spot Accreditation.
Full Accreditation:
Full Accreditation is for organizations that provide multiple CME activities during the year, and wish to apply for their CME activities.
Organizations are therefore encouraged to become providers and start enjoying the benefits of becoming members of the Association’s accredited providers.
Spot Accreditation:
Spot Accreditation is for organizations that provide a limited number of annual CME activities and wish to apply for a “per activity” accreditation.
In this category, organizations will be evaluated on the basis of being “non-providers”, but have accreditation-eligible CME activities.
Applying For Spot Accreditation
If you need assistance in determining which accreditation type works better for your organization, please email Lisa at: l.griffith (at) aacme (dot) org
Applying For Full Accreditation
To be considered for the “Full Accreditation”, you must first apply for accreditation.
The American Association of CME accreditation process is thorough. It goes through 5 different committees and subcommittees that examine the applying organization’s qualifications based on questionnaire answered in the “Application for Accreditation” package, as well as other vital elements that serve as background information on the organization applying for accreditation.
Once an organization submits their initial request, they will be assigned a team of 2 faculty staff from the Monitoring Committee who will assist the applying organization throughout the preparation of the application package, by collecting all necessary data.
However, the process is rigorous and lengthy in time. The initial step is to apply for the “Application for Consideration”. This process starts with the Monitoring Committee who will evaluate the application, assign a number for the applicant organization, and then evaluate the application on a preliminary base to find out whether the applicant organization qualifies to be further examined by the preceding committees and subcommittees.
This process takes up to 6 months from the time the organization applying for accreditation submits their application package, but could take as short as 6 weeks, depending on the applying organization’s past experience in CME.
If the organization applying for accreditation has extensive background planning educational activities, the process can be fast-tracked, and can take as short as 3 weeks from the time we receive your completed package.
Once an organization is granted accreditation, all provider’s CME programs will be accredited.
This also means that attendees at CME activities organized by the provider will effortlessly be able to meet the annual licensure requirements for the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and the renewal of their board certificates in many countries around the globe where our credit currency is accepted.
Once granted accreditation, the organization may joint-sponsor CME activities with other non-accredited organizations, which will add to the benefits of the provider’s prestige and reputation.
Many accredited providers charge fees for joint-sponsorship which also compensates for staff time and use of resources.
The accreditation process is a beneficial educational step. An organization applying for accreditation goes through a detailed learning process through the 5 committees and their faculty members during the evaluation process of the organization applying for accreditation.
Once the applying organization is determined to be “qualified” for accreditation, the process for accreditation starts from here.
Email us at: Accreditation (at) aacme (dot) org
