What is PARS? Overview of the ACCME Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS)
Welcome to this overview of the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System, an online database to collect data and information about our national CME system. My name is Kate Regnier and I’m the Deputy Chief Executive for the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.
Mission Focused: Setting Standards for Quality CME
The ACCME’s mission is to set standards for quality, independent continuing medical education and to administer a process to certify that providers are meeting those standards. We value CME as an essential tool for improving what physicians know, the skills and strategies that physicians use in practice, what they actually do in practice and the impact that has on patients.
Serving Our Stakeholders: Transparency and Value in the Public Interest
The ACCME was created almost thirty years ago by seven member organizations. Those seven member organizations are: the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Association for Hospital Medical Education, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the Federation of State Medical Boards of the U.S. The ACCME also stands accountable to the public and the federal government as well as the seven member organizations. To ensure that CME is based on valid content, independent of commercial interest and focused on practiced based learning and improvement for the physician learners they serve as well as the health care teams in which those physicians operate.
Improving Our Process: Streamlining Ongoing Data Collection
PARS will collect information on an ongoing basis from accredited providers about their overall program and their activities into a secure online database. That data and information will be used during the accreditation process and will be aggregated into the ACCME’s annual report. PARS will capture the same data that the ACCME has been collecting from accredited providers since 1998. While no new data will be required, there are new optional fields that will be available for providers to complete if they so choose. The ACCME believes that accredited providers and stakeholders of our system will benefit from some of this additional information about the size, scope and content of our CME system.
Greater Perspective: New Information to Support the Value of CME
PARS will allow the ACCME to publish a more a more comprehensive annual report that will describe the value of our CME system to stakeholders. That description will include the number of activities, the type of activities, the number of physicians and non-physician learners, as well as financial information about our CME system — the income, advertising, commercial support of our system as well as the expenses of the accredited CME system.
A Provider’s Tool: Designed to Work in Flexible Ways
We’ve created PARS to allow accredited providers to enter data and information in a way that is flexible to their organizations — how you’re currently maintaining your data and what your technical resources are. Providers have the option of entering data and information about single activities or groups of activities. Providers can use a Web-based form for those single activities or a batch upload tool for groups of activities. The ACCME has also provided tutorials and instructions to help you determine the best method for your organization.
Our Strategic Asset: Dedicated to Supporting Accredited Providers
As always, it is important that the ACCME support accredited providers with the resources you need to get the greatest value from PARS. Educational resources such as video tutorials and frequently asked questions have been made available to assist you as you begin to use PARS.
We anticipate that PARS will simplify the approach of data submission and collection between ACCME and accredited providers. We welcome your constructive feedback, your comments, your suggestions, as we look for ways to increase the utility of PARS to you as accredited providers, to the ACCME and to our stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to demonstrate that CME is a Bridge to Qualityä and that accredited providers truly are a strategic asset to the physician learners they serve and their patients.
Thank you for your time and attention today. Thank you for exploring PARS. And do let us know how we can be of assistance.
For more information, visit http://www.accme.org/cme-providers/maintaining-your-accreditation/about-pars.
