Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s mission is to shape the future of health and healthcare. As an academic campus, education is a central component of moving that mission forward … not only through the innovative curriculum offered to students attending the prestigious medical school but also by providing a robust menu of continuing medical education (CME) offerings open to practitioners within and outside the Vanderbilt network.

“Vanderbilt is considered to be one of the top 10 research institutions in the U.S.,” said Don Moore, PhD, director of the Office for Continuous Professional Development. “Along with that ranking, comes an obligation,” he continued. “We help practitioners gain access to the latest information that they can take back to their practices. We have a community-based mission in that respect.”

Moore, who is also a professor of Medical Education and Administration for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said CME programming focuses on four areas – clinical, teaching techniques, research and health systems administration – with the majority of offerings being clinically focused.

“When you design a CME activity, you want to design it for effectiveness,” he noted. “To do that, you really need to know what the learning needs are.”

Moore said departments and divisions at VUMC help drive content by tapping into data, research and other information resources to address those needs and disseminate the latest advances in evidence-based medicine and underscore best practices, which is critical in an era where value, efficiency and quality are redefining how healthcare is delivered. “As the healthcare system is changing, we obviously need to help physicians understand how those changes will impact what they do,” Moore added.

While most courses are geared to physicians, Moore said anyone associated with a particular disease area is welcome to attend. Looking back at the past year, he estimated attendance was about 75 percent physicians and 25 percent other health professionals. “We have a large number of nurses who attend our courses,” he said. “They can transfer our credit to their nursing requirements.”

Moore continued, “We recognize healthcare is delivered in teams. Our long term goal is to offer interprofessional education where doctors and nurses are not just sitting in the same room listening to physician content but where the content actually contains information for both of them, and they are working together.”

A key area for Office of Continuous Professional Development is maintenance of certification. In 1999, specialty societies began rolling out a new requirement for specialty certification in which physicians were required to conduct a quality improvement project that would impact their patients. However, Moore noted, that new requirement really began being broadly enforced in 2014.

“We now have the responsibility in our office to provide physicians with support for their quality improvement projects. Our goal is to help physicians provide the best possible care to their patients. Our involvement in maintenance of certification is another way to do that,” he said.

Moore’s office posts information about upcoming programs online which physicians and other health professionals can access by going to cme.vanderbilt.edu. Registration fees, where applicable, and details on location, target audience and course overview are available under the ‘CME Activities’ tab on the website.

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is accredited with commendation by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

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