Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS)

Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) The ACCME's Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) is a web-based portal designed to streamline and support the collection of program and activity data from accredited continuing medical education (CME) providers. The primary purpose of PARS is to provide a centralized system for the collection and management of activity and program data from all accredited CME providers. PARS data helps ACCME, IMQ/CMA and CME providers to demonstrate the size, scope and value of the CME enterprise. All CME providers accredited by IMQ/CMA are required to use PARS. PARS data replaces the List of Activities (LOA) spreadsheet submitted during the reaccreditation process, and the Annual Reporting form that collected statistics about each accredited provider s CME program. Providers determine the frequency for entering their activity data. IMQ encourages providers to begin inputting data as soon as possible. You can enter basic information about an activity before it has taken place and complete the entry after the activity occurs. You must enter all of your organization's activity and program data for a completed Reporting Year and complete the Attestation by the last business day in March of the following year. ACTIVITY DATA CHANGES PARS CHANGES IN 2015 Providers are required to include the following data about each activity taking place in the 2015 reporting year. The name of joint providers (formerly joint sponsors ), if applicable. The number of designated AMA PRA Category 1 Credits, if applicable. Competency(ies)the activity was designed to address. Providers may select competencies defined by ACGME/ABMS, Institute of Medicine, the Interprofessional Education Collaborative, or select Other. The name of commercial supporter(s), the monetary amount of support, and/or the type of in-kind support given by each supporter. PARS will continue to offer checkboxes for types of in-kind support. For other in-kind support, providers no longer need to complete a description field. In addition, a new section will automatically summarize the commercial support information reported for all commercial supporters of the activity. The following data is no longer reported for individual CME activities. See the Program Summary section for more details. Advertising and exhibit income. This information is submitted only in aggregate in the Program Summary. Income from other sources. This information is now entered only in aggregate using three specific categories in the Program Summary. Expenses. This data field is eliminated and expense information is no longer collected in PARS. 1

The following terminology and definitions changes may impact the data you previously entered for these fields. The term sponsorship is changed to providership and activities are described as directly provided or jointly provided. When two accredited organization collaborate, only one provider takes responsibility for the CME and enters the data in PARS as a directly provided activity. Non-physicians are called other learners. This category includes activity participants other than MDs and DOs. Residents are no longer included in this category; beginning with the 2015 reporting year, residents are counted in physician participants. This terminology change was made in response to feedback from the CME community that other learners is a more appropriate term for describing the range of learners. The Physician Participants category continues to include activity participants who are MDs or DOs an d now includes residents. PROGRAM SUMMARY CHANGES The following are changes to the program summary data. Income categories have been added to collect more detailed data about CME program income. PARS will continue to aggregate the total amount of monetary commercial support entered for each CME activity that had commercial support. Advertising and exhibit income is only entered in the aggregate on the Program Summary. This data is no longer entered at the activity level. The category Income from Other Sources is eliminated. This category is replaced with three specific income categories: registration fees (includes registration, subscription, or publication fees received from CME activity participants), government grants, and private donations including grants from foundations. Providers will no longer be required to include allocations from their parent organization or other internal departments. The Category of Total Expenses of your CME unit is eliminated. PARS no longer includes a field to collect data about expenses. The wide range of provider types and accounting systems did not allow this data to be reported in a standardized, consistent manner across the accreditation system. 2

HOW TO Log in Request a password 3

1. Go to ACCME.ORG 2. Click on FOR CME PROVIDERS 3. Click on LOGIN TO PARS Your contact information needs to be entered into PARS for you to be assigned a password that allows you to access to the database. Your contact information needs to be entered by the designated primary contact person in your organization. If you are not sure who the primary contact is or if the primary contact is no longer at your organization, please email emelendez@imq.org. 4

Once your contact information is in PARS, you can request a password from ACCME directly. Click on the Request a password link and ACCME will email you a temporary password. You will need to know your ACCME ID number (This is the same number as the IMQ 7-digit provider ID/account number beginning with 400 that appears on IMQ invoices or accreditation reports). 5

There are 5 tabs HOME MY ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES PROGRAM SUMMARY USER MANAGEMENT The Home tab is the first page you will see. Verify that your organization profile information is correct! 6

HOME MY ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES PROGRAM SUMMARY USER MANAGEMENT The Organization Profile tab shows all of your contacts: Primary, Billing, CEO and *Other Users (*not shown on screen). Make sure this information is correct! You can update your Organizational Profile information except that you cannot modify or replace your organization s name in PARS. If your organization s name has changed, please email emelendez@imq.org. 7

HOME MY ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES PROGRAM SUMMARY USER MANAGEMENT The Activities tab is where you enter data about all of your activities (individually or by a batch upload) 8

HOME MY ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES PROGRAM SUMMARY USER MANAGEMENT The Program Summary tab is where your CME program income is summarized 9

HOME MY ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES PROGRAM SUMMARY USER MANAGEMENT The User Management tab is where you can update, add or delete a user(s) 10

REMINDERS Always SAVE after entering in any data. PARS does not autosave! Do NOT use the back browser buttons. You will lose your page if you use the browser buttons. Always click on one of the five tabs to navigate through PARS (and remember to SAVE!) Please make sure you are in the correct reporting year. If you go between the Activity Tab and the Program Summary tab, the reporting year defaults to the current year. Make sure you are entering data into the correct reporting year. Ask questions! Please contact Eva Melendez (emelendez@imq.org) for any PARS related questions. 11

HOW TO Enter Activities Individually Activity Tab 12

ACTIVITIES TAB What you will see in the Activities Tab: -Download Summary of Closed Activities (PDF of a summary of all completed activities entered into PARS for the selected reporting year) -Add an activity (add individual CME activities) -Batch Activity Upload (upload a batch upload template) -Download All Activities (excel spreadsheet of all incomplete and complete activities entered into PARS for the selected reporting year) -Download REMS activities (excel spreadsheet of all REMS activities entered into PARS for the selected reporting year) ADD ACTIVITY to add activities individually BATCH UPLOAD ACTIVITY to add all activities at one time by uploading a completed batch upload spreadsheet (template) OPEN activities contain incomplete information. CLOSED activities contain all required information and require no further action. 13 Once you entered data into PARS, you will see each activity listed by type of activity (Course, RSS, etc.) under the Open and/or Closed Activities tab(s). Next to the type of activity is a number in parenthesis that indicates the number of activities entered for each of the different types. Open activities are those in which the required information is missing. For example: Course (1) = You entered one Course activity RSS (10) = You entered ten RSS activities Internet Live Course (2) = You entered two Internet

How to add activities individually: 1. Click on Add Activity button 2. Make sure you select the correct reporting year from the drop down menu. Click on Continue 3. Enter data for each field: a. The drop down menu lists all activity types you can report: 14

Only activity types Course and Internet Live Course have an Activity Sub-category: b. Activity Title Mandatory c. Provider Activity ID If your organization assigns an internal code or identifier to each of its CME activities, you may enter it into this field. This field is only optional when entering single activities. You need to enter a value for this field in cases where your organization offers multiple activities in the same format on the same date. It is also mandatory for all activities included in batch upload files. Do NOT enter your seven-digit ACCME ID/Provider ID number here! d. Activity Date Mandatory For RSS activities: Enter the date of the first session of the RSS offered in the reporting year you are working on e. Providership Mandatory (if you have a jointly-provided activity, the name of the joint provider(s) is mandatory) A directly provided activity is one that is planned, implemented and evaluated by the accredited provider. Include co-provided activities (provided by two accredited providers) in this category if you are the accredited provider awarding the credit. In contrast, a jointly provided activity is one that is planned, implemented and evaluated by the accredited provider and a non-accredited entity 15

f. Hours of Instruction Mandatory Hours of instruction equals the total hours of educational instruction provided. For example, if a one-day course lasts eight (8) hours (after subtracting time for breaks, meals or non educational events), then total hours of instruction reported for that course is 8. g. Number of AMA PRA Category 1 Credits Designated Mandatory Hours of instruction and AMA PRA Category 1 Credit designated for the CME activity may be the same or may be different than hours of instruction. Please refer to the American Medical Association s web site for information about how credit should be designated for CME activities. For RSS activities, you must enter in the total amount of credits for each session of the RSS activity. For example: (RSS was designated for 2 hours of credit for each session) 2 credits x 5 sessions = 10 credits will be reported for this RSS h. Description of Content Optional (please read below for suggestions) Description of Content is an optional field where you may enter a description of the information, topics covered, expected results or learning objectives, information about faculty or you may simply describe the content in your own words for the CME activity. There is no specified format for this field, although it is limited to 2500 characters.. 16

i. Designed to Change or Changes Evaluated? Mandatory. At a minimum, your activities should be designed to change competence. Each type of expected result consists of two parts. Part one asks you to identify whether or not the activity was planned to change that expected result. At a minimum, you should be designing activities to change competence. The second part asks whether or not you evaluated each expected result. You are not required to evaluate all the expected results that you indicated as Yes for an activity. For example, you may have designed an activity to change competence and performance, but then only evaluated for competence. However, for any result that you indicate that you had evaluated results, you would be expected to show evidence at the time of your reaccreditation. j. Developed in the context of which competencies? Mandatory Select the competency(ies) the activity was designed to address from the dropdown menus or select Other Competencies. (ACGME/ABMS refers to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education / American Board of Medical Specialties) It is up to your organization to determine the desired physician attributes/core competencies appropriate for your CME Program. PARS requires that you select at least one relevant competency/attribute for each activity. PARS lists the most common ones that organizations have adopted, including those published by the IOM and ACME/ABMS. It allows you to select Other Competencies if the ones listed do not apply to you. Please note that if you check off Other Competencies, there will be no field for you to enter in your other competencies since it is not mandatory to report other competencies other than the ones listed in PARS. 17

k. Number of physicians who completed activity Mandatory Physician participants are activity participants who are MDs or DOs. Effective with the 2015 reporting year, residents are included as physician participants. If entering activities for 2014 or earlier, residents are not included in this category, but are included under non-physician participants. The number of participants should be the number of people who attended the activity whether they claimed credit or not. For live events, this can just be the number of people attending; for enduring/internet enduring materials, the participants are whoever completed the activity, where there is proof of completion (not just the number of hits on the webpage). For RSS activities, the number of participants is the aggregate number of participants from each session in the series. So if there were 5 sessions with 10 people each, it would be 50 participants total. l. Number of other learners who completed activity Mandatory All participants who are not MDs or DOs are called other learners. Beginning with the 2015 reporting year, residents are no longer included in this category and are instead counted as physician participants. The terminology change has been made in response to feedback from the CME community that other learners is a more appropriate term for describing the range of learners. 18

m. Financials Indicate yes or no to the question if Commercial Support Received? If yes, more data will be requested: Support Source: Drop down menu will list Support Sources from A-Z. If you do not see any options for your Support Source, type their name in the OTHER field to the right. Monetary Amount Received In-kind Support Received (Check all that apply) Add a source of commercial support: If you have more than one Support Source, click on the button. n. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) If you have a REMSqualified activity to report, click on the drop down menu and choose the second option from the list: 19

There will be more information that you will need to enter if you have a REMS activity. ALWAYS remember to SAVE! 20

HOW TO Do a batch upload & Correct an error message Please read BATCH UPLOAD instructions before attempting to upload your spreadsheet. The instructions and template can be found in the IMQ CME Provider Portal. Please email Eva Melendez at emelendez@imq.org if you do not have access to the CME Provider Portal. 21

Click on Batch Upload Activities button 1. Click on the reporting year you are working on (2015 to 2016) 2. Click on Browse button to upload your template (see instructions for batch upload or XML file upload) 3. You can choose either Tab Delimited (or XML). Choose Tab Delimited for batch uploads. 4. Click on Upload & Validate File You can also download the templates for the Tab Delimited spreadsheet or the XML upload by clicking on the links to the right. 22

5. If your text (tab delimited) file upload is successful, you will see this message: 6. Click on Yes, proceed 7. The same message appears but includes this statement: You can view the activities you added and/or updated on the activities summary page 23

BATCH UPLOAD ERROR MESSAGE How come I am receiving an error message after uploading my spreadsheet? ERROR MESSAGE READS: *Received (field 15) not yes Line 24, Field 48-55: Invalid data value/format for Commercial Support: Commercial Support Received (field 15) not yet This is just an example of one of the types of errors you may receive after uploading your template (they can have different fields listed). If you receive an error like this, please contact Eva Melendez at emelendez@imq.org with a screenshot of the error message and a copy of the spreadsheet (txt file) you are trying to upload. *For this particular error message, column 15 (Commercial Support Received? Y/N) were marked NO, as well as all of the corresponding commercial support data fields. REMINDER: If you did not receive any commercial support, then mark NO in column 15. You will also need to keep columns 48 and greater blank. 24

WHAT IS a XML Upload & who to ask for assistance Some technical knowledge of your tracking system and XML may be required. Please contact your IT department or the vendor for your CME activity tracking system for assistance. XML directions can be found on the IMQ CME Provider Portal. Please refer these instructions to your IT department or vendor. 25

XML = extensible Markup Language XML File Export: XML stands for extensible Markup Language, a Web standard that makes it easier for computer systems to exchange data over the Internet. In order to collect information in a manner that is consistent with the data communications standards being adopted by medical education content providers, PARS includes a data upload tool that accepts XML files formatted to conform with the Medical Education Metrics (MEMS) XML standard created by Medbiquitous. Providers that have CME activity tracking systems that support exports to XML files may wish to explore this option for uploading data to ACCME. Some technical knowledge of your tracking system and XML may be required. Please contact your IT department or the vendor for your CME activity tracking system for assistance. Please give your IT representative or vendor the XML directions. This can be found on the IMQ CME Provider Portal. 26

WHAT TO enter in the Program Summary 27

You cannot enter information in number 1. The total amount of monetary commercial support received that you entered for each activity is aggregated and automatically displayed here. Changes to this number need to be made in data for the activity that received commercial support. For numbers 2-5, data is required in the four free fields. If you did not receive anything in that category, please type 0.00 in the box. ALWAYS remember to SAVE and do not use the back arrow buttons 28

ACTIVITY TYPES Definitions & How to report in PARS 29

COURSE: A course is a live CME activity where the learner participates in person. A course is planned as an individual event. Examples: annual meeting, conference, seminar. HOW IT IS REPORTED: For events with multiple sessions, such as annual meetings, accredited providers report one activity and calculate the hours of instruction by totaling the hours of all educational sessions offered for CME credit. To calculate the numbers of learners, accredited providers report the number of learners registered for the overall event. Accredited providers are not required to calculate participant totals from the individual sessions. If a course is held multiple times for multiple audiences, then each instance is reported as a separate activity. INTERNET LIVE COURSE: An internet live course is an online course available at a certain time on a certain date and is only available in real-time, just as if it were a course held in an auditorium. Once the event has taken place, learners may no longer participate in that activity. (Example: webcast) HOW IT IS REPORTED: They are reported the same as courses. Internet Live Courses are reported separately for each occurrence. REGULARLY SCHEDULED SERIES (RSS): A course is identified as a regularly scheduled series (RSS) when it is planned to have: 1. a series with multiple sessions that 2. occur on an ongoing basis (offered weekly, monthly, or quarterly) and 3. are primarily planned by and presented to the accredited organization s professional staff. Examples of activities that are planned and presented as a Regularly Scheduled Series are Grand Rounds, Tumor Boards, and M&M Conferences. HOW IT IS REPORTED: Each RSS is reported as a single activity in PARS. The activity date should be the date of the very first session in that reporting year. You will be reporting the same RSS activity each reporting year (if the sessions continue into the next year). (example: RSS activity started 1/21/2014 and had two more sessions that continued into 2015: 2/1/2015 and 3/21/2015. This RSS should have been reported in 2014 with 1/21/14 as the activity date. In 2015, you will report the same RSS activity, but you will report the very first session that was offered in this reporting year, which would be 2/1/2015.) You will need to add up the total hours of instruction of all sessions in the reporting year. (example: 55 sessions x 1 hour each = 55 hours) 30

The number of participants will be the total number of attendees of all sessions in the reporting year. (example: 55 sessions x 3 physicians attended each session = 165 physicians) You will need to add up all credits designated for each session in the reporting year. (example: 5 sessions x 1 credit for each session = 5 credits For example: Internal Medicine Grand Rounds is planned for the entire year as one series. They meet weekly during the year for one hour each week. In PARS, the series should be entered as one activity with 52 hours of instruction. If 20 physicians participated in each session, total physician participants would be 1,040 (20 physicians/session x 52 sessions) for that single activity. ENDURING MATERIAL: An enduring material is a printed, recorded, or computer-presented CME activity that may be used over time at various locations and which, in itself, constitutes a planned activity. In an enduring material the provider creates the content. HOW IT IS REPORTED: Enduring materials should be reported in PARS for each calendar year in which they are active, either for the entire year or any part thereof. For each year that you provided the activity, please report the number of learners (physician or nonphysician) who participated in it during the calendar year, as well as the income and expense related to the activity for the reporting year. Do not report cumulative data for an activity spanning multiple years. When reporting the number of physician and non-physician participants for an enduring material activity, you should count all learners who completed all or a portion of the activity and whose participation can be verified in some manner. ACCME would not consider individuals that only received the enduring material activity but did not actually complete all or a portion of it to be participants. INTERNET ACTIVITY (ENDURING MATERIAL): An internet enduring material activity is available when the physician participant chooses to complete it. It is enduring, meaning that there is not just one time on one day to participate in it. Rather, the participant determines when he/she participates. (Examples: online interactive educational module, recorded presentation, podcast). HOW IT IS REPORTED: Internet enduring material activities should be reported in PARS for each calendar year in which they are active, either for the entire year or any part thereof. For each year that you provided the activity, please report the number of learners (physician or non-physician) who participated in it during that calendar year, as well as the income and expense related to the activity for the reporting year. Do not report cumulative data for an activity spanning multiple years. When reporting the number of physician and non-physician participants for an internet enduring material activity, you should count all learners who completed all or a portion of the activity and whose participation can be verified in some manner. ACCME would not consider individuals that only downloaded or accessed the activity but did not actually complete all or a portion of it to be participants. 31

JOURNAL BASED CME: A journal-based CME activity includes the reading of an article (or adapted formats for special needs), a provider stipulated/learner directed phase (that may include reflection, discussion, or debate about the material contained in the article(s)) and a requirement for the completion by the learner of a pre-determined set of questions or tasks relating to the content of the material as part of the learning process. HOW IT IS REPORTED: When you report Journal-Based CME in PARS, report each article as one activity. For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time required to complete the activity. The number of participants should equal the total number of individuals who completed the activity. For example, a provider produces a journal that contains an article that is associated with a CME activity. Twenty physicians read the article, reflect on the content, and complete questions related to the content of the article. The physicians spend 1 hour on this activity. In PARS, the provider would report this as a Journal-Based CME activity with 20 physician participants, and 1 hour of instruction. MANUSCRIPT REVIEW: Manuscript review CME is based on a learner s participation in the pre-publication review process of a manuscript. HOW IT IS REPORTED: When you report Manuscript Review CME in PARS, report each journal for which the manuscript is being reviewed as an activity regardless of how many manuscripts there are and regardless of how many persons have reviewed manuscripts as CME. For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time you believe a learner would take to complete the Manuscript Review CME activity. The number of participants should reflect the total number of learners engaged in reviewing manuscripts as CME. For example, a provider published one journal. During the course of the year, 25 physicians reviewed manuscripts for this journal. Each physician spent 2 hours on his/her review. In PARS, the provider would report this as 1 Manuscript Review CME activity, with 25 Physician Participants and 2 Hours of Instruction. TEST ITEM WRITING: Test item writing is a CME activity based on a learner s participation in the pre-publication development and review of any type of test-item (e.g., multiple choice questions, standardized patient cases). HOW IT IS REPORTED: Test Item Writing CME activities may consist of either of the following processes: 1. When questions are written for an item pool from which they are later drawn to build a variety of tests, then building the questions for a single pool is one activity (ex. the Pediatric Item Writing Committee of the National Board of Medical Examiners; or the Second Year Clerkship exams at your medical school); or 32

2. When questions, items or cases are created for one specific test, then each test is a separate CME activity (ex. MCQ items for the 2012 Clerkship exam in Pediatrics). For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time you believe a learner would take to complete the Test Item Writing CME activity. The number of participants should equal the total number of persons who engaged in the Test Item Writing CME activity. For example, a provider planned a CME activity in which 5 physicians wrote test items for an American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) member board certification examination question pool. Each physician completed the Test Item Writing CME activity in 10 hours. In PARS, the provider would report this as a Test Item Writing CME activity with 5 Physician Participants and 10 Hours of Instruction. COMMITTEE LEARNING: Committee learning is a CME activity that involves a physician learner s participation in a committee process where the subject of which, if taught/learned in another format would be considered within the definition of CME. HOW IT IS REPORTED: Each Committee Learning activity should be reported separately in PARS and the hours of instruction and number of participants should be reported the same as you would for a course. PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT: Performance improvement activities are based on a learner s participation in a project established and/or guided by a provider in which a physician identifies an educational need through a measure of his/her performance in practice, engages in educational experiences to meet the need, integrates learning into patient care and then re-evaluates his/her performance. HOW IT IS REPORTED: When you report Performance Improvement CME in PARS, count each learning project as one Performance Improvement CME activity, regardless of whether or not it is created for an individual physician, or group of physicians. For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time you believe a learner would take to complete the Performance Improvement CME activity. The number of participants should equal the total number of learners who participated in the learning project. For example, a provider established a Performance Improvement learning project in which 3 physicians participated. Each physician completed the learning project in 20 hours. In PARS, the provider would report this as a Performance Improvement CME activity, with 3 Physician Participants and 20 Hours of Instruction. 33

INTERNET SEARCH AND LEARNING: Internet searching and learning activities is based on a learner identifying a problem in practice and then accessing content in search for an answer from sources on the Internet that are facilitated by a provider. HOW IT IS REPORTED: When you report Internet Searching and Learning CME in PARS, aggregate and report all your data for Internet Searching and Learning CME for all learners into one activity. For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time you believe a learner would take to complete their Internet Searching and Learning CME activity. The number of participants should equal to the total number of persons who participated in Internet Searching and Learning as a CME activity. For example, a provider creates an Internet Searching Learning CME activity in which 50 physicians participate. Each physician spent 30 minutes participating in this activity. In PARS, the provider would report this as an Internet Searching and Learning CME activity, with 50 physician participants and.5 Hours of Instruction LEARNING FROM TEACHING: Learning from teaching is a descriptive label for a type of CME activity. This label was developed at the ACCME as a corollary to the AMA s recognition within the PRA of direct Credit for Teaching. As well, the 2013 AMA PRA approved format for teaching of medical students and residents, from an accreditation perspective, fits within the ACCME s 2010 description of a learning from teaching CME activity, described here. We want to assist accredited providers who are seeking to further support, facilitate, and recognize the personal professional development associated with the preparation and presentation of education. Learning from Teaching activities are essentially personal learning projects designed and implemented by the learner with facilitation from the accredited provider. The ACCME has provided guidance for providers on how Learning from Teaching CME activities can be incorporated into the accredited provider s program of CME. As is the case for all activities, an accredited provider s Learning from Teaching CME activities are expected to be developed in compliance with all applicable ACCME requirements (eg, ACCME Criteria and Policies). Learning from Teaching represents a range of activities in which an accredited provider can facilitate practice-based learning and improvement where the practice could be the person s professional teaching practice or clinical practice or research practice. 34

Examples of learning from teaching activities: 1. A faculty member is asked to give an interactive skills-based workshop on Sinusitis designed to address medical students inability to evaluate patients appropriately for this condition. The faculty member identifies, through self-assessment, that she does not know the anatomy of the sinuses, does not know the pathophysiology of these processes, and does not have a personal strategy in place for taking a history regarding sinusitis or for examining the patient. Therefore, she conducts her own personal learning project to address these needs and can then describe what new strategies she develops as a result. Also during this process, she learns several new skills associated with including x-ray images and 3D-imaging videos in her educational presentations using software tools. 2. To prepare for teaching a skills workshop at a surgical specialty society meeting, physician faculty find that they need to learn how to operate a new laparoscopic device that will be used during the workshop. The specialty society, as an accredited CME provider, facilitates their training on the new device as a Learning from Teaching CME activity for the faculty prior to their teaching engagement. 3. An accredited provider makes available a Learning from Teaching CME activity for community physicians who have recently been recruited as new faculty for undergraduate and graduate medical school instruction in the form of individualized learning projects where new faculty assess what knowledge and skills they need to teach more effectively, and then makes available training and feedback to improve their teaching skills. It includes one-to-one mentorship and training with educational experts that is scheduled by the learners. 4. In the process of revising a series of educational seminars provided each year for the orientation of new staff members, a physician administrator in the risk-management department finds that she has to learn and incorporate new medical coding knowledge and strategies that have been published since the last orientation she taught. As an accredited CME provider, her institution makes it possible for her to receive CME credit for her Learning from Teaching that involves modifications to her own coding practices while preparing for the seminars. HOW IT IS REPORTED: When you report Learning from Teaching CME in PARS, aggregate your data for Learning from Teaching CME for all learners into one activity. For hours of instruction, specify the amount of time you believe a learner would take to complete their Learning from Teaching CME activity. The number of participants should equal the number of individuals who participated in this CME activity. For example, a provider created a Learning from Teaching activity for 10 physicians. Each physician completed their CME activity in 2 hours. In PARS, the provider would report this as a Learning From Teaching CME activity, with 10 Physician Participants and 2 Hours of Instruction. 35

Frequently Asked Questions 1. We started a course (enduring material) mid-december in a joint providership, and only four people took it in 2014, but now there will be hundreds for 2015. Do we have to create a new entry for the same course each year, entering only the reporting year s number of participants? Yes, enduring materials are reported as an activity in every reporting year that they are made available. Providers report only the hours, participants, etc. for the 12 month period that they are reporting on for the reporting year. 2. We are conducting a live activity (participants in a room) that will also have a live streaming to and internet audience (webcast), will this be considered a Live Activity, or an Internet Live Course? This will be considered as one live activity, and all participants in the room and on the live webcast should be counted in your total number of participants. You can also archive this live course and webcast into an enduring material. This must be planned and evaluated as a separate activity, along with compliance with all the accreditation requirements (disclosures, etc.). You must also meet compliance for enduring and internet enduring materials per the ACCME and AMA requirements. 3. Do I have to report multiple sessions (not RSS) individually even if it is just considered ONE activity? It is very time consuming to report the same activity 25 times. Although it seems repetitive if the activity is the same, and the only differences are the locations and dates, it is important to get all the data that reflects on the whole scope of the CME system. This is why it is mandatory that they are reported as a separate activity each time it is provided. 36

You will need to report each as one activity, the number of credits for one session and the total number of physicians and non physicians who attended. Number of credit is the credit designated for one session. There is a copy feature so you will not have to enter in every single field for the multiple sessions. The only fields you will need to update are: Location, Activity Date and Participant. 37

4. Why are there more columns on the spreadsheet (batch upload) than there are on the online form? As long as the required information is filled in, the other columns can remain empty if they do not apply to you. 5. What if I do not have all the data from an activity that was held at the end of the year until the beginning of next year? You should answer the questions to the best of your ability for year-end reporting. If your answers change once you receive the data, please contact IMQ to remove the attestation for that reporting year to adjust the activity accordingly. Please keep in mind there is still a deadline in order for you to make corrections in the previous year. 6. I have already uploaded a batch activity, but I need to make changes, will my new upload override the information that was already uploaded into PARS? Yes, you are able to upload the same batch filed to PARS as many times as you need to and PARS will update the information for that activity. There are four fields that should NOT change, or else PARS will not recognize the activities needing to be updated and will just create new activities: the Provider Activity ID, Reporting Year, Activity Date and Activity Type. If any of those fields are the ones that need to be updated, you will need to make sure you delete the old activities that were updated. 38

RESOURCES IMQ STAFF Administrator, CME Programs Jena Resner, M.D. (415) 882-5182 jresner@imq.org Association Administrator, CME Programs Eva Melendez: (415) 882-3314 emelendez@imq.org WEBINAR IMQ offers one on one PARS Orientation Webinars Please contact Eva Melendez to schedule ACCME.ORG FOR CME PROVIDERS - About PARS http://www.accme.org/cme-providers/maintaining-your-accreditation/about-pars 39