Executive summary: effectiveness of continuing medical education: American College of Chest Physicians Evidence-Based Educational Guidelines.

摘要

The importance of CME is reflected in part because it is required by most state licensing boards, which specify an average of 12 to 50 CME hours annually to maintain medical licensure.2 The MOC program of the American Board of Internal Medicine, as an example, intends to (1) improve the quality of patient care, (2) set the standards of clinical competency for internal medicine and its subspecialties, (3) foster continuing scholarship and improvement required for professional excellence over a lifetime of practice, and (4) help to lead quality improvement in medicine, while being respectful of physicians' time.3 A large component of the MOC process is accomplished through CME. With these regulatory obligations, an important question emerges. Is CME simply a system to help physicians fulfill a requirement, or does it effectively improve physician practice leading to better health care?