QUALITY MATTERS Pairing Innovation and Continuing Education OHSU grows its continuing professional development to help learners across the state By Tiah Lindner WHEN VISHNU MOHAN, MD, MBCS, MBI, FACP, became chair of the OHSU School of Medicine CME committee, he attended many different grand rounds to understand what was being offered. “OHSU is filled with truly excellent educators,” said Dr. Mohan, assistant professor of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology, OHSU School of Medicine. “It was astonishing to see so much expertise, knowledge, professionalism and compassion across so many disciplines.” This spirit of education and innovation has directly informed changes in the School of Medicine’s office of continuing professional development. Now that same spirit is leading educational efforts aimed at quality improvement and patient safety while reaching more people in more places—and in more ways—than ever before. In its annual report to the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the school reported a record number of 170 activities offered to 36,056 physicians and 17,500 other health care professionals in 2015. “CME doesn’t occur in isolated silos or in large chunks,” said Dr. Mohan. “It happens continuously across a provider’s career in a journey of learning.” In fact, a wide variety of new offerings, such as Affirmative Mental Health for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth, which brought participants from 19 states, Puerto Rico and British Columbia, is changing the very face of CME. “It is gratifying to see more providers engaging with our programs and building relationships with OHSU,” said Michele Favreau, Ph.D., Vishnu Mohan, MD, MBCS, MBI, FACP associate dean for continuing professional development and lifelong learning, OHSU School of Medicine. “As we make progress in modernizing our educational formats and diversifying our offerings, we’ll offer even richer and more relevant activities, creating even greater access to OHSU CME.” Five traveling CME programs were available in 2015, offered by the Knight Cancer Institute, Knight Cardiovascular Institute, the OHSU Brain Institute and the departments of orthopaedics and rehabilitation and pediatrics. Thirty-five events served providers in locations such as Corvallis, Coos Bay, Lebanon, Stayton and Vancouver. Increasingly, CME activities are evolving via educational philosophy, curriculum development, technology and interprofessionalism in an effort to connect to the transformational educational changes afoot in undergraduate and graduate medical education. And more than ever, CME offerings emphasize quality improvement and patient safety, giving providers the real-time skills needed to create positive transformation in day-to-day practice with the goal of optimizing patient and community outcomes. Distance learning and online tools are critical to a modern CME program. “Grand rounds, which have followed the same format for nearly a century, are still an important part of education,” noted Dr. Mohan. “But today, departments like medicine and informatics are streaming these sessions.” “Streaming formats usually follow the same educational framework, but learners and instructors may interact differently,” Mohan continued. “For example, during clinical informatics grand rounds, learners can ask questions via Twitter.” OHSU continuing professional development hopes to make programs more accessible by collaborating across the OHSU learning community to unify resources and provide dual credit for continuing education as well as maintenance of certification for learning activities. “We are on an innovative road,” said Dr. Mohan. w ww.theOMA.org Spring 2016 21
OMA Medicine in OR Spring 2016
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