Thank you for your interest in accredited continuing education (CE)! This page will give an overview of the CE accreditation & documentation process.

The CE process can be divided into five phases:

Phase 1: Plan an Activity
Phase 2: Application
Phase 3: Pre-Activity Documentation
Phase 4: Activity Go-Live Date & Credit Claiming
Phase 5: Post- Activity Documentation


Phase 1: Plan an Activity—"Is my content eligible for accredited continuing education?"

CE activities must be designed to:

  • Address educational needs defined by at least one (1) professional practice gap.
  • Change skills/strategy, or performance of the healthcare team, and/or patient outcomes. 

The primary purpose for a CE meeting should be to improve the problems identified in practice (practice gaps) as well as foster the continuing professional development of physicians and other healthcare providers. Use this guide on how to write practice gaps—PDF iconPractice Gap-Learning Objectives presentation.pdf

Target Audience:

  • At least 5 providers must attend and claim credit for each session/activity
  • Primarily Advocate Aurora team members
  • For recurring activities/series: Failure to meet the attendance thresholds listed above may result in the activity losing CE accreditation.  

Types of CE Activities: View this document for definitions & examples of the different types of CE activities—PDF icon Types of CE Activities.pdf

Activity Faculty: While there are other possible roles for activity faculty, the following faculty positions serve as the foundation of a CE activity:

  • Activity Director: the primary content expert (in at least one of the planned areas) on the planning team and typically chairs the planning committee. The Activity Director will have overall responsibility for all aspects of the accredited activity. Responsibilities may be delegated to other members of the planning committee or staff members, but ultimately the Activity Director is responsible. Responsibilities cannot be delegated to a commercial interest representative. The Activity Director must also assemble a planning team reflective of the target audience of the educational activity (ex. If physicians, RNs, & PAs are part of the target audience, the planning committee should have at least one physician, RN, & PA).
     
  • Peer Reviewer: Person responsible for reviewing content (clinical content validation and review) and/or reviews or mitigates financial relationships with ineligible companies. May not have any relationships with ineligible companies. In many cases, the Activity Director will serve this role.
     
  • Planning team member: Serve as an active member of the planning team by providing relevant insight on educational needs and professional perspectives of the team member. Interprofessional education should have a planning committee that reflects the team and have an integrated planning process that includes health care professionals who are reflective of the target audience members the activity is designed to address.
     
  • Contact Person/Coordinator: Serves as first point of contact for accreditation and will work with the accreditation department. Creates application/proposal, works with planning team, collects disclosures, works with faculty, may lead logistics.

* Please note your planning faculty must be representative of your target audience. (Ex. If your target audience is physicians, nurses, and pharmacists you will be required to have at least one physician, one nurse, and one pharmacist on the planning team to ensure the content is relevant to each discipline.)

Below are some resources that will help highlight what is required from the planning team:

Disclosure of Financial Relationships:

To protect the learning environment from industry influence, all activity faculty members must complete a disclosure of financial relationships form. Faculty members will state whether they have any financial relationships with an ineligible company in the past 24 months. An ineligible company is one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re‐selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Click here to see specific examples of ineligible companies.

  • The ACCME and ACPE Standards for Integrity and Independence require that we disqualify individuals who refuse to provide this information from involvement in the planning and implementation of accredited continuing education
  • In order for a CE application to get approved all planning committee members will be required to complete the online disclosure of financial relationships form. 
  • To access the disclosure form faculty must login to their profile on the CE Learning Platform.

 


    Phase 2: Application for CE

    Schedule:
    In order to allow enough time for planning, documentation and promotion of the activity, CE application materials* must be submitted to the CE department according to the following schedule.

    • At least 10 weeks for live/single activities, may be shorter depending on CE team availability
    • At least 4 weeks for series and/or on-demand education 

    Marketing & Branding:

    Registration:

    Registration for a Live-Single Conference:

    • All registration for a single conference is required to go through the CE Learning Platform. 
    • The CE Learning Platform offers a secure payment process that allows all attendees to complete registration and payment online, if needed
    • Registration list can be pulled anytime during the registration process by contacting the CE Office. 
    • Confirmation email will be sent via email to the registrant right after they register. 
      • The confirmation email can include the meeting location/link (if virtual) or can state the meeting link is forthcoming. 
    • Reminder email can be sent out at any designated time (e.g. 48, 24, 12 hours) before the conference.
      • The Planners can include any additional information for the registrant such as the location/link (if virtual).

    Registration for a Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS):

    • We can offer registration for a Regular Scheduled Series (RSS) by adding the outside registration link to the CE Learning Platform. 
    • The learner will go to the CE Learning Platform and link out to registration page to register for that session.   
    • All promotional material needs to be directly linked to the CE Learning Platform page.  You cannot market an outside vendor registration page (ex. Zoom), but only the CE Learning Platform Registration Page.

    Application

    All applications must adhere to the minimum submission timelines.

    The following information will need to be included along with the application 

    • Preliminary Budget: Microsoft Office document icon CE Simple Budget Template.doc
    • Agenda: Including beginning & ending time to calculate the number of CE credits that can be awarded. Credits are awarded relative to the duration of the education. Credit is determined in 15 minutes increments with .25 credits offered for every additional 15 minutes. Example: 45 minutes = .75 credits; 90 minutes= 1.5 credits
    • List of all Faculty involved in planning or presenting:
      • For the application to receive provisional approval all course faculty involved with planning the activity must complete a Disclosure of Financial Relationships Form. Click here to complete the online form or copy the link to send to other faculty.
         
    • Ready to Apply? 
      • Click here to Apply for CE
      • For Illinois team members please contact either the CE Site Coordinator at the location you wish to host an event or the Coordinator assigned to your organization. If you are unsure of which CE site coordinator to contact, please email cme@aah.org.
      • After submission, a CE Office representative will reach out to the individual who submitted the application. 

    Phase 3: Pre-Activity Documentation

    Required documentation may differ depending on activity type. Please choose from one of the links below to see the required documentation for your activity type.
    Please note that no documentation is required until the CE application has received provisional approval.


    Phase 4: Activity Go-Live Date & Credit Claiming

    Like the documentation process, the requirements for the "day of the activity" & credit claiming methods can differ between activity types. Please choose from one of the links below to see documentation for your activity type.


    Phase 5: Post-Activity Documentation

    • Final Budget: Please submit a budget to the CE office after the activity once all expenses & potential revenues have been finalized. Please use this budget template a Microsoft Office document icon CE Simple Budget Template.doc (Not required for zero-budget activities)
    • If you elected to share outcome data with the CE Office regarding the impact of the activity, please make sure to send any data in the agreed upon timeframe.
    • Evaluation Summary: The CE office will send the course director a summary of the audience’s responses to the online course evaluation. 
      • Live-Single Activities: 60 days after the activity
      • Internet Enduring Activities: After the online course's expiration date
      • RSS: Annually

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