ACCME is the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and is the organization that sets the standards for the accreditation of all providers of CME activities.

Although not limited to; IMANA mainly qualifies educational activities for CME certification that are lectures and/or meetings in which learners are physically present.

AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™  is the most common type of credit physicians need for medical license maintenance. In order for an activity to be designated for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit, it must be planned by an accredited CME provider.

Contact [email protected] to discuss your activity or call the IMANA Office of CME at (630) 932-0000.

Direct Sponsorship: A CME activity that IMANA CME develops and implements internally for its own membership.

Jointly Sponsorship: A CME activity that is developed and implemented by two institutions or organizations and only one of the institutions or organizations is accredited by the ACCME. The accredited provider (e.g., IMANA) must take responsibility for a CME activity when it is presented in cooperation with a non-accredited institution or organization. A commercial interest cannot take the role of a non-accredited entity in a joint sponsorship relationship (Source: ACCME).

Co-sponsorship: A CME activity presented by two or more accredited providers. One institution must take responsibility for the activity.

No; pharmaceutical sales representatives or representatives of medical product/device manufacturers cannot pay directly for the food. However, they can provide an educational grant to IMANA in support of the food costs (see ACCME Standard 3).

No, it is up to the Activity CME Chair to select appropriate topics and speakers for their CME activity based upon the target audience’s educational needs. The Activity CME Chair can request a Speaker List from a pharmaceutical representative and then select an appropriate speaker and topic from the list. The Activity CME Chair should then communicate with the chosen speaker and delineate the learning objectives he/she would like the speaker to address (see ACCME Standard 1.1).

In response to growing concerns about keeping health information private, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The legislation includes a privacy rule that creates national standards to protect individuals’ personal health information.  Patient authorization must be obtained OR information de-identified. The items considered to be identifiers by the federal government and therefore to be removed are extensive—basically anything that could tie the medical information to an individual—including, but not limited to name, address, social security and medical record number, picture of face, any date associated with the individual (admission, discharge, birth, death), and implanted device serial numbers. WHENEVER POSSIBLE, DE-IDENTIFY INFORMATION TO BE PRESENTED AT CONFERENCES. For additional information, visit http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa.