UA College of Medicine – Tucson CME Office Receives ‘Reaccreditation with Commendation’

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) has granted the Office of Continuing Medical Education (CME) reaccreditation with commendation—the highest status awarded by ACCME.

The Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson has received reaccreditation with commendation from the national Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

The commendation status is the highest status awarded by ACCME. This is the first time the College has achieved commendation for its CME programming.

ACCME’s commendation status recognizes institutions  engaged in quality initiatives within their health systems and their communities through collaborative alliances. Institutions receiving commendation also must demonstrate the implementation of educational strategies to remove, overcome or address barriers to physician change. In recognition of the overall quality of CME programming, the ACCME granted the UA College of Medicine – Tucson reaccreditation for six years (instead of the typical four years).

“The Office of Continuing Medical Education looks forward to continuing to provide quality CME programming in the years to come,” says Randa Kutob, MD, MPH, director of the office. “We are proud to support the lifelong learning needs of our physicians and to promote their continued professional development.”

The UA College of Medicine – Tucson has been accredited by ACCME since 1986 and remains dedicated to providing high-quality educational activities in support of its mission to increase knowledge, advance physician competence, improve clinical performance and ultimately provide the best care possible for patients.

As part of this mission, the UA College of Medicine – Tucson has taken a leading role in addressing the epidemic of opioid abuse and overdose, both in Arizona and across the nation. The CME office recently collaborated with the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the Arizona Department of Health Services to create a suite of online courses to help providers safely manage patients on opioid medications and to disseminate the Arizona Opioid Prescribing Guidelines. To date, four courses offering 6 CME credits have been developed to meet the recently mandated Arizona Medical Board licensure requirement of 3 credits per licensing cycle in opioid-related, substance use-related or addiction-related continuing medical education.

UA College of Medicine faculty members in Tucson and Phoenix, as well as community preceptors, can receive as many as 10 free credits of CME ($250 value) by logging in to the UA College of Medicine – Tucson CME website, the Virtual Lecture Hall®. The website currently offers 29 online courses, including topics on safe opioid prescribing, medical errors prevention, risk management, patient safety, cultural competency, HIV treatment and skin cancer diagnosis, among many others.

The new accreditation period went into effect March 22 and will continue for six years, through March 31, 2025.