Vivacity Consulting

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Reporting Learners to PARS? How to Get Started with a Pilot Project

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Getting Started with Learner Credit Reporting in PARS: A Step-by-Step Guide for CME Providers

As a medical education consultant, I’ve worked with many CME providers who are eager to streamline their processes, support lifelong learning, and reduce administrative burden for their teams and physician learners. One of the most impactful ways to do this is by reporting individual learner credit data through the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS).

Starting with a small pilot can help your organization ease into this process while learning the system. And now, with recent requirements from the American Board of Surgery (ABS), the need for learner credit reporting has become even more urgent.

Why Now? The ABS Requirement

As of 2023, the American Board of Surgery will no longer allow surgeons to self-report their CME credits. Instead, CME providers must submit credit on behalf of surgeon learners via PARS. This change makes it essential for providers who educate surgeons to begin learner credit reporting as soon as possible. If your organization provides CME to surgeons, start your pilot with this group. It will help your learners stay in compliance with Continuous Certification requirements and prevent delays in their certification and license renewal processes.

Why Start with a Pilot?

Launching a pilot allows your organization to:

  • Test the Process: Learn how to navigate PARS in a low-risk setting
  • Identify Barriers Early: Work through technical or administrative challenges
  • Demonstrate Value: Show stakeholders how this supports learners and accreditation alignment

Step-by-Step Guide to Launching Your Pilot

  1. Select a Pilot Activity
    • Choose a recent or upcoming CME activity with a manageable number of learners.
    • Make sure the activity is already entered into PARS.
  2. Gather Learner Information For each learner, you’ll need:
    • First and last name
    • State of licensure
    • License number or National Provider Identifier (NPI)
    • Date of birth (month and day only)
    • Date of activity completion
    • Confirmation of consent to report their data (if needed)
  3. Choose a Reporting Method
    • Manual Entry (best for small groups)
    • Excel Batch Upload
    • Automated Web Services Integration with your LMS
  4. Submit Data in PARS
    • Log in to PARS, locate the activity, and upload learner data.
    • Review and validate the submission.
  5. Evaluate and Refine
    • Solicit feedback from learners and staff.
    • Note technical hiccups or workflow issues and adjust accordingly.

Benefits of Learner Credit Reporting

  • For Surgeons: Required for ABS Continuous Certification
  • For Providers: Positions your CME program as responsive and learner-centered
  • For Regulators: Improves data accuracy and simplifies license renewal processes

Helpful Resources

Take the First Step

Getting started with a pilot is the most efficient way to build comfort and capability with learner credit reporting. And for providers serving surgeons, it’s no longer optional.

Start small and start soon!

Need help planning your pilot or selecting tools to streamline the process? Contact me if you would like assistance.

ACCME’s Criterion 6: How We Made This Useful

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ACCME’s Criterion 6: Not all Criteria Are Made the Same

It’s true. All of the criteria are important, but some are MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHERS. Right? We all know this. Identifying gaps and needs is very important. Ensuring independence from commercial interests is very important. Criterion 6 is not at the top of the totem pole of importance.

However, one of my clients, SAGES, has embraced Criterion 6 in a pretty neat way to make it useful in the planning process (see below). Every year, each session of the Annual Meeting is linked to one or more “Physician Competencies.” We track this and then highlight for the next year’s Program Committee areas which may have been under-emphasized in previous years. Not all competencies are relevant to this large specialty societies’ annual meeting – but some are.

In this way, lowly Criterion 6 becomes not just required for compliance, but also provides insight into the CME program and therefore IT’S ACTUALLY HELPFUL! Which, of course, is the ultimate goal of the CME process.

Criterion 6

Example of ACCME’s Criterion 6 Used in Planning