Planning Guide

Table of Contents

• Basics of CME

• Timelines for Planning CME Activities

• Educational Planning

• Marketing Guidelines

• Registration Options

• Managing Finances

• Mitigating Commercial Bias

• Activity Close Out

• Additional Credits

• Reference Pages

Basics of CME

Continuing Medical Education (CME) at Michigan Medicine is a critical tool designed to improve physician performance leading to enhanced patient care. CME activities are unbiased and high-quality educational content that is both relevant and tailored, targeting the specific needs of our local, regional, and global learners. Through the planning process appropriate educational methods, such as lectures and simulations, are selected to close these identified professional practice gaps. The impact of CME is assessed by observable changes in clinical practice and patient outcomes, ensuring that education leads to tangible improvements.

Participation in CME keeps healthcare professionals at the forefront of medical practice, helps to fulfill licensing and certification requirements, and demonstrates a dedication to ongoing professional development.

Timelines for Planning CME Activities

The decision to apply for continuing education credit should be made as soon as the idea for the educational activity begins to take shape. Detailed timelines have been developed to help educational planners navigate the process and to ensure that all requirements are addressed in the proper sequence.

Adhering to these timelines will help educational planners create strategically planned activities that deliver high-quality, clinically relevant, unbiased education.

Educational Planning

To receive CME credit, all educational activities require documentation describing the process used to design the activity. This documentation is made as easy as possible during the application process within MiCME. Educational planning demonstrates that an activity is relevant by addressing an important problem and effective in producing the required change.

Marketing Guidelines

Marketing and promotional materials, such as emails, flyers, websites, and brochures, must comply with the national rules set for accredited CME before distribution. If promotional materials are distributed before approval from the Office of CME and Lifelong Learning, CME credit cannot be designated.

Marketing Guidelines

Registration Options

Registration is an important consideration when planning your activity. There are two registration options to choose from.

Managing Finances

The Educational Planner is responsible for the management of all financial activity associated with the CME activity. 

Ensuring Integrity & Independence in CME

It is essential that Accredited Continuing Education provides healthcare professionals with a protected space in which to teach and learn, free from the influence of organizations that may have an incentive to insert commercial bias into education. Interactions between industry and healthcare professionals are valued, legitimate, and often lead to advances in patient care. Financial relationships between healthcare professionals and industry are similarly widespread, inevitable and legitimate. However, these interactions and relationships must not be allowed to influence the topic or content of CME.

Activity Close Out

The Activity Close Out must be completed within 30 days of the end of an activity, series, or enduring material completion to assess activity performance and to fulfill CME requirements. If reports are not received in a timely manner, credit for future courses will not be awarded.

Activity Close Out Instructions

Additional Credits

In addition to credit provided to physicians, our office can assist faculty planners with securing continuing education credit for psychologists and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Part II for certain board-certified physicians.

Reference Pages

Included below are additional resources to assist with the educational planning of a CME activity.