“Systems-Integrated CME”: The Implementation and Outcomes Imperative for Continuing Medical Education in the Learning Health Care Enterprise

Abstract

Introduction: Health care delivery has evolved from a variably connected collective of individually owned proprietorships and independent hospitals to an environment in which physicians increasingly contract with or are employed by health care enterprises. While continuing medical education (CME) that is focused on the dissemination and maintenance of medical knowledge and the development of skills plays a critical role in helping physicians keep up to date, the authors of this manuscript believe the structure and delivery of CME have not suffi ciently evolved to be broadly viewed by health enterprise leaders as a strategic or integral asset to improving health care delivery. Therefore, an evolution and a reconceptualization of the structure and function of CME are necessary to enable collaboration between leaders and improvement experts in health care enterprises and CME. In this paper, the authors describe models that better refl ect a more eff ective role of CME within learning health care delivery enterprises and the implications of such models for these enterprises and the CME profession.