Dignity Health's East Valley
Office of Continuing Medical Education
"Commitment to excellence through education"
Purpose
In keeping with the mission of Dignity Health the East Valley's Office of Continuing Medical Education (CME) is dedicated to providing physicians and other health care professionals with educational experiences that:
- Enhance their ability to provide compassionate, high-quality and affordable health services.
- Foster a life long learning environment.
- Advance their knowledge, skills and competencies based on current and scientifically sound programs.
- Emphasize evidence-based approaches whenever possible.
Target Audience
CME activities are primarily designed and presented to serve the professional and educational needs of physicians who are credentialed to practice medicine at Chandler Regional or Mercy Gilbert Medical Centers, and Dignity Health's network of Urgent Care centers. Although the content and strategy of CME is determined by the needs and interests of these physicians, we secondarily seek to serve the needs of other Dignity Health professional health care staff as well as local, regional and national physicians and colleagues.
Content Areas
The scope of the East Valley's CME programs consists of, but is not limited to topics that encompass the following: Advances in clinical medicine and research
- Quality and patient safety
- Leadership
- Interpersonal and communication skills
- Professionalism
- Practice-based learning and improvement
- Systems based practice
- Medical ethics
- Medical/legal
Type of Activities
Dignity Health's East Valley Office of CME offers a variety of department-specific, interdepartmental and specialty-specific conferences, symposia, lectures, grand rounds, tumor boards, M&M conferences, workshops or and seminars. These events can take the form of live courses, regularly scheduled series, web based learning, performance improvement and internet point of care CME.
Expected Results
Dignity Health's East Valley Office of CME is committed to assessing the impact and effectiveness of its CME program by both qualitative and quantitative methods. The expected results are to provide physicians and other health care professionals with educational programs that improve their current clinical knowledge and decision-making and enhance patient care by improving competence, performance, or patient outcomes. These results are measured through a variety of evaluation tools:
- Pre- and post-activity surveys to measure physician’s expanded or reinforced knowledge, greater confidence in their approach to clinical problems, intent to change behavior and apply new strategies in their practice.
- Follow-up outcomes measurements to determine if physicians changed practice behaviors on the basis of what they learned and the impact on patient outcomes.
- Direct observation of learners demonstrating competence and effective use of targeted skills.
- Comprehensive annual and ongoing evaluation of the CME program as a whole.
