TITLE:
Evaluation of Continuing Medical Education (CME) Systems across the 27 European Countries
AUTHORS:
Tommaso Saita, Pietro Dri
KEYWORDS:
E-Learning, Continuing Medical Education (CME), Continuing Professional Development (CPD), European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME), Tell Me Project, Pandemic Situation
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.9,
May
26,
2014
ABSTRACT: The EU Research Project
Tell Me aims to create a common communication channel and joint intervention
strategies to respond to potential pandemic influenza events. This aim can be
supported by using e-learning, which is an increasingly popular approach for
continuing medical education. It is characterised by practical and theoretical
advantages related to its flexibility, accessibility, adaptability, reduced
time and costs and the potential to rapidly disseminate and update educational
resources. The aim of this article is to review and identify the policies of
continuing medical education systems in Europe. We will specifically focus on
e-learning, which may be useful to understand whether there is a favourable
evidence and context for the development of a common European continuing
medical education e-learning framework. We conducted a survey to collect
information about the Continuing Medical Education (CME) system’s policy of 27
European Union countries using electronic databases. A CME system is present in
26 of the27 EU countries. Most of the countries have 1) similar CME system
requirements (16), 2) the same accreditation unit (21) and 3) recognize CME
distance learning (E-learning) (22). There are still some differences between
continuing medical education systems of European countries; however, there is a
favourable evidence and context for the development of a common European
continuing medical education e-learning framework.