Elevating Healthcare through Lifelong Learning: A Comprehensive Look at Johns Hopkins Continuing Medical Education Courses

Introduction

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is dedicated to improving community health. The Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) plays a crucial role in fulfilling this mission by providing high-quality educational opportunities for healthcare professionals. This article explores the OCME's commitment to excellence, its structure, the types of courses offered, and the overall value it provides to learners.

The Johns Hopkins OCME: A Legacy of Excellence

Since its accreditation in 1974, the Johns Hopkins University Office of Continuing Medical Education has been a leading provider of continuing medical education. The OCME's mission statement reflects the spirit and core ideology of the institution, promising to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in teaching, research, and patient care.

The OCME leadership, including Todd Dorman, MD (Associate Dean), and Annette Donawa, PhD (Assistant Dean), reports to Roy Ziegelstein, MD (Vice Dean for Education). The team possesses over 100 years of combined experience and is an approved Portfolio Sponsor (ABMS) and partner/provider for NIH and multiple medical education companies (MECCs). Participant evaluations are overwhelmingly excellent, and a high percentage of repeat learners attests to the quality and value of OCME programs.

Commitment to Quality and Innovation

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine OCME is committed to protecting the privacy of its members and customers. The OCME does not give, share, sell, or transfer any personal information to a third party unless required by law.

Diverse Range of Courses and Activities

The Johns Hopkins OCME offers a wide array of continuing medical education activities designed to meet the diverse needs of healthcare professionals. These activities include:

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Online Modules: Accessible and convenient, online modules cover a variety of topics relevant to clinical practice.
Primer Courses: Designed to provide a thorough understanding of specific medical areas. For example, an online primer course is available to supply primary care providers, residents, infectious disease fellows, hospitalists, and advanced practice providers with a thorough understanding of various infectious diseases commonly encountered in primary care settings.
Videocasts: The Center for Information Technology (CIT) makes special NIH events, seminars, and lectures available to viewers on the VideoCast web site. VideoCasting is the method of electronically streaming digitally encoded video and audio data from a server to a client. Streaming files are not downloaded, but rather are broadcast in a manner similar to television broadcasts. The videos are processed by a compression program into a streaming format and delivered in a staggered fashion to minimize impact upon the network and maximize the experience of the content for the viewer.
Historical Perspective Modules: The Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins offers online CME modules that provide a historical perspective on issues of relevance to clinical practice today. These modules, for instance, address global health. Global health may seem like a 21st century phenomenon, but current institutions and practices of global health are the products of a long history, tracing from 18th century colonial, imperial, and tropical medicine through 20th century international health institutions. This CME is intended to be of value to any physician practicing in any specialty or subspecialty in the United States, especially for those who take any type of role in global health. The topics addressed provide such physicians with an analytic toolkit for analyzing and interpreting the historical roots of global health today, including institutions, practices and personnel.

Infectious Disease Primer for Primary Care: An Example

Infectious diseases remain a dynamic and fascinating field replete with new challenges facing outpatient primary care providers and hospital medicine practitioners alike. Through eight comprehensive online modules, healthcare professionals will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively address, manage, and prevent infectious diseases, while promoting optimal patient outcomes. The program covers a range of topics, including HIV, latent tuberculosis, skin and soft tissue infections, community-acquired pneumonia, vaccine updates, antibiotic usage and stewardship, and sexually transmitted infections.

Participants can earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. PAs may claim a maximum of 14.25 Category 1 credits for completing this activity. The Johns Hopkins University has approved this activity for 14.25 contact hours for non-physicians.

Global Health: A Historical Perspective

In an increasingly globalized world, “tropical” diseases such as Ebola and Zika routinely cross borders, become subjects of mass media speculation around the world, and present challenges to American health-care systems and providers. Conversely, American public and private nonprofit institutions fund large-scale initiatives to counter malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis around the world, and many American physicians travel to the developing countries for various volunteer, service, and teaching opportunities.

Accessibility and Convenience

The Johns Hopkins CloudCME web portal allows users to register for upcoming courses, review calendars, identify activities that will help them provide better care, access online syllabi, complete course evaluations and download transcripts in real-time. Within our web portal, users can have a personal profile. The CloudCME mobile app is the next step in convenience and accessibility.

Accreditation and Disclosure Policies

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine OCME is committed to ensuring the integrity and transparency of its educational activities. It is the policy of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that the speaker and provider globally disclose conflicts of interest. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine OCME has established policies in place that will identify and resolve all conflicts of interest prior to each educational activity. Detailed disclosure is made prior to presentation of the education.

Participation and Credit

Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Post activity, an online evaluation form will be available to attendees to evaluate the activity and identify future educational needs. Upon completion of the evaluation, the learner must attest to the number of hours in attendance. A certificate of attendance will be available immediately for download or print. A post-test will be conducted at the conclusion of the activity. A grade of at least 70% within three attempts is needed to receive CME credit.

Registration and Payment

Learners must register and submit full payment prior to the start of the activity. The Johns Hopkins University reserves the right to cancel or postpone any activity due to unforeseen circumstances. In this event, the University will refund the registration fee. Refunds will only be issued for learners who have not accessed the course.

Technical Requirements

The course will take place on the Canvas LMS (Canvas.jhu.edu). Participants need the ability to log on to the platform, preferably using Google Chrome, to complete the content, which will include videos, readings, and assignments.

Commitment to Accessibility

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine fully complies with the legal requirements of the ADA and the rules and regulations thereof. Sign language interpreters will be provided for events.

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Confidentiality Pledge

Participants may be exposed to "protected health information," as that term is defined and used in Hopkins policies and in the federal HIPAA privacy regulations (the "Privacy Regulations"). Protected health information is information about a person's health or treatment that identifies the person. Participants pledge and agree to use and disclose any of this protected health information only for the training and/or educational purposes of their visit and to keep the information confidential. They agree not to post or discuss this protected health information, including pictures and/or videos, on any social media site.

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