Continuing Medical Education

The Office of Continuing Medical Education experienced tremendous change and transformation in 2020.

Out of necessity at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we quickly pivoted our weekly in-person grand rounds lecture series to a virtual format, which had already been piloted earlier in the academic year. Many thanks to Steven Bilbie for contributing the technological expertise that made this possible. Attendance at our new virtual Pediatric Grand Rounds reached historic high levels, averaging 175 attendees each week, a 46 percent increase from in-person attendance in recent years. Our grand rounds lectures also reached pediatric audiences in seven states in 2020, and we have been able to invite external speakers who can now join us virtually but would otherwise not have been able to journey to Connecticut. In our ongoing efforts to provide efficiency and added value from all of our CME offerings, our Pediatric Grand Rounds Series is now eligible for MOC Part 2 credit under the American Board of Pediatrics, the American Board of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, and the American Board of Otolaryngology.

To meet the immediate support needs of our pediatric community during the Covid-19 pandemic, on April 3, 2020, our team kicked off Ask the Experts, a brand new education series that allows us to dedicate an hour each week to Covid-19-related questions. Thinking beyond our immediate audience, we registered Ask the Experts with the national Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education Council (ACCME). It quickly grew to be a resource to physicians in 13 states across the country, and CME credit is available via the ACCME website under “Covid-19 Clinician Resources.” Ask the Experts has become and continues to be a valued resource for our pediatric health care audience in a time of great uncertainty. John Schreiber, MD, MPH, continues to lead the weekly Ask the Experts talk, and has been paired each week with a pediatric subspecialty expert to address Covid-19 and conditionspecific questions. To quote one learner, “This is an amazing weekly conference that Connecticut Children’s is presenting. I don’t think that any other organization in the area has anything similar to this weekly presentation. Thank you to the CME team, Dr. [Juan] Salazar, and Dr. Schreiber.”

In 2020, the Office of CME also transitioned our annual Pediatric Evening Lecture and Andrulonis Child Mental Health Evening Lecture series, which are both typically held at the Pond House Café in West Hartford, to an interactive virtual workshop offered via Zoom. Our audience has enjoyed the remote access and ability to view the recording session if they are unable to join in real time. Although our audience members missed the ability to connect in-person each month, our attendance increased by 1.8 percent in the new virtual format. Also available from the comfort of home and office, our Office of CME rolled out a new series entitled Pediatrician’s in PJ’s: CME From the Comfort of Your Couch. This series kicked off in August and is an on-demand series made available online 24/7 for a small fee.

We celebrated many CME milestones in 2020. We kicked off the 2020-21 academic year with 48 approved Regularly Scheduled Series modules, 17 of which offer MOC Part 2 credit for the American Board of Pediatrics. Our Traveling Grand Rounds Speaker Bureau also increased its speaker participation by 215 percent, the highest physician participation in the history of our TGR Bureau. Subscription to our newly created private Facebook Group, https://www. facebook.com/groups/536551017209052//, spiked almost immediately and served as our first-ever digital platform designed to interact and support our CME pediatric community. Our office understands that each learner utilizes different resources and pathways to stay current with CME, whether that be our website, blasts, or monthly newsletter. Our Facebook group will serve as an additional resource and avenue of networking to stay current on CME topics in our new virtual world.

Given the success of the digital formats for attendance of Pediatric Grand Rounds, Traveling Grand Rounds, Pediatric Evening Lectures, Andrulonis Child Mental

Health Evening Lectures, and Ask the Experts, these activities will continue to be offered digitally post-Covid.

Finally, effective November 1, 2020, and as a result of the Connecticut State Medical Society discontinuing its CME Accreditation authority, our Office of CME transitioned its accreditation to our national governing body, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). This is a positive change for our CME efforts as we now sit alongside our CME colleagues across the country and are better able to learn and share best practices related to providing the most effective, relevant continuing education to our pediatric community in our region.

MAINTENANCE OF CERTIFICATION (MOC)

The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) automatically awarded all ABP-certified providers 25 maintenance of certification Part 4 credits as many had quickly shifted workflows and priorities to address the day’s most pressing needs. The Connecticut Children’s Care Network has greatly utilized the Office of Continuing Medical Education’s MOC portfolio to incentivize vaccination quality improvement (QI) projects across the state, with plans to offer additional quality improvement projects related to behavioral health in the coming year. Currently, a total of 30 QI/MOC projects (12 internal for Connecticut Children’s physicians and 18 communityfocused) are available to providers through the MOC portfolio. Due to a year of unprecedented shifts and changes, the Office of Continuing Medical Education will welcome a new MOC program coordinator in 2021.

STAFF

Marianne Custer, BS, C-TAGME Senior Manager, Office of Continuing Medical Education and Fellowship Programs Elizabeth Anderson Manager, Office of Continuing Medical Education Nicole Capsolas CME Operations Coordinator Kimberly Forbes (departed March 2020) MOC Coordinator