CEPD events start with great ideas and enthusiastic faculty. But every great idea needs to be reviewed to ensure educational integrity and to ensure that participants are eligible for credits for the time they spend learning. That is part of what happens during the process called Accreditation.
Accreditation is one of the important first steps towards holding any event. It can be somewhat involved and time-consuming for the first-time event director.
But don’t worry because Accreditation Coordinator Karma Farah, and Education Consultant- Accreditation Jessica Black, are here to help. They will work with you to realize your goal of creating innovative, original programming that will be educationally sound and improve patient outcomes.
Here are Karma’s and Jessica’s top five tips to keep in mind when going through the Accreditation process to ensure a successful peer review:
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Be aware of time. Timelines are very important in the accreditation process. It is advised that you apply a minimum of 8-10 weeks ahead of the event start date, or 3-4 weeks before your advertising deadline, to ensure that the peer review of the event is finalized.
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The more the merrier. Multiple commercial sponsorship is highly recommended over single sponsorship to avoid the potential perception of bias in your program. CEPD follows a commercial sponsorship policy for all events. Click here to view the policy on our website.
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Manage conflict. Faculty are expected to disclose relevant relationships with industry for a period of 5 years prior to a course. The College of Family Physicians of Canada has also instituted a new process regarding mitigation of Conflict of Interest. If your application includes a request for Mainpro-M1 credits we will help you navigate through the new guidelines and disclosure slide requirements.
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Learn from the past. If you have an evaluation summary from a previous event it can act as a valuable needs assessment tool for the future iteration of your meeting. We will provide you with guidance on how you can best utilize this feedback during the application process.
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Participation starts with participants. All accredited events must include a minimum of 25% interactivity within the body of the program. Interactivity can take the form of question and answer periods, workshops, role-playing, the use of audience response systems, or small group discussions. It is important when submitting a program for review that the elements of interactivity are clearly identified on the program and are also obvious to the participants in the program. We can provide you with tips on how to work interactive and engaging elements into your program. Click here to read more.
To learn more about accreditation at CEPD, click here.