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Greetings Continuing Education Program Directors, Administrators, and Planners! The UCSF Office of CME (OCME) would like to share the following important and exciting updates.

Starting this fall, we will require a signed Educational Activity Agreement for any continuing education activity beginning after January 1, 2025. Each Educational Activity Agreement delineates roles, responsibilities, regulations, and costs for educational activities offered in coordination with OCME. UCSF OCME will send the agreement via Docusign to Program directors and administrators. Please review and sign this agreement as soon as possible. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

For those activities that utilize OCME’s Registration and Learner Support Services, we provide a secure online registration portal and payment processing. This includes standard or customized registration forms; options for group registration, discount codes, early-bird and other tiered pricing options; registrant tracking; cancellation and refund management; data reporting; as well as customer service, technical support, and preparation of registration materials.

Please note that as of January 1, 2025, OCME will no longer be providing hardcopy, printed materials for educational activities. Digital files for materials such as sign-in sheets, rosters, and badges, will be prepared and provided for each educational activity using standardized templates. OCME will no longer be printing badges.

For badge printing, we recommend one of the following two options:

1. Printing your own name badges: If this option is selected, OCME will provide digital PDF documents formatted for printing. The PDF document for attendees will have the name badges formatted with the UCSF logo, each attendee’s name with their credentials, city and state. The PDF document for the Speaker or Exhibitor name badges will include “Speaker” or the exhibitor’s company name, rather than the city and state. These PDF documents can be used to print directly onto badge paper. When requested, OCME can provide the badge paper and the plastic badge holders, at a cost, for either pickup or shipment.
2. Using a printing service: (recommended): If this option is selected, OCME will provide a roster in Excel that a printing service can use to create name badges. At this time, OCME recommends (1) All-American Printing, which will print and insert the name badges into the badge holders and deliver the name badges to you, or (2) UCSF’s Documents, Media, and Mail (DMM) which is an on campus resource. Please allow 72 hours before any Bay Area event and at least 5 business days before any event outside the continental United States. (*UCSF OCME already has transitioned to using an external printing service for all name badges for all conferences planned by the OCME Conference Manager team.)

We recommend closing online registration at the time of the registration export for either of these options; however, if online registration remains open, OCME will provide a final roster by email on the last business day before the educational activity to capture anyone who registers after the badge export.

OCME is pleased to introduce you to the newest unit in OCME– the Learner Experience Team. The Learner Experience Team supports registration, responds to learner inquiries, manages certificate requests, and provides additional support to improve the educational experience for learners. This newly formed team is working to standardize and improve services for our learners, planners, and other stakeholders. They have designed a new ticketing system to improve customer support. If a learner has a question or needs assistance, please direct them to this website to Submit a Help Ticket.

As a Joint Accredited Provider for Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE), UCSF CME encourages all Program Directors, Administrators, and Planners to consider how their educational activities can be designed for the all members of the healthcare team. Thus, we encourage the planning committee members to represent multiple health professions and to create educational content that promotes improvements in communication and teamwork. At this time, UCSF OCME is accredited to provide professional continuing education credit to:

• Physicians (ACCME)
• Nurses (BRN/AANC)
• Advanced practice professionals (NPs and PAs – AANC and AAPA)
• Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians (ACPE)
• Dentists (ADA)
• Psychologists (APA)
• Behavioral Health Professionals (AWSB)
• Athletic Trainers (BOC).

These accreditations are now possible through a single application process!

Speaking of applications, please note that OCME updated the submission deadlines for credit requests. Please keep these in mind as you begin planning for future educational activities.

New Educational Activity Credit Requests

• Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS) and Enduring Material Activity Types

Deadline: 4 months before start date

• Live, Hybrid, and Other Activity Types

Deadline: 9 months before start date

Renewal Educational Activity Credit Requests

• Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS) and Enduring Material Activity Types

Deadline: 3 months before start date

• Live, Hybrid, and Other Activity Types

Deadline: 6 months before start date

Find more accreditation information here: https://meded.ucsf.edu/cme/information-planners-and-coordinators/accreditation-and-educational-development

In addition to providing valuable information, training materials, and forms for planning continuing education, OCME’s CE Portal also contains learner credit certificates and transcripts. As of January 1, 2025, OCME will no longer accept registrant or attendee data from external sources (e.g. final participant lists cannot be uploaded into the system.) Learners should self-claim by clicking a link or scanning a QR code at the end of the educational activity to automatically record their credit in the OCME CE Portal system. Alternatively, the administrator or planner can add participants to the OCME CE Portal and “check them in” to log their credit claims. Certificates and transcripts are accessible from the learner’s CE Portal profile.

For more information, see Standards, Documents, Templates, Closing Checklists, and Tutorial Videos on the CE Portal site.

OCME currently uses multiple technology systems to manage continuing education: a registration platform (Configio), an accreditation and activity management platform (HighMarks), a survey platform for evaluations (Qualtrics), and learning management platform(s) for on-demand learning.

In late Fall 2024, OCME will begin the transition to a new system, CloudCME, which will integrate the functionalities of all these systems and provide additional features to coordinators and planners.

For planners, the CloudCME Portal will manage the submission of accreditation applications, enhance online reviews, simplify the collection of learner and speaker information (including disclosures, mitigation forms, and other custom forms), provide marketing tools, allow access to participant data associated with educational activities, and assist with budgeting.

For learners, the CloudCME portal will enable registration, payment, online learning access, evaluations, credit claims, certificates, and transcripts to all be accessible in a single system with a single login. For UCSF staff and faculty, login will be further streamlined by the single sign-on via MyAccess.

In addition, CloudCME offers separate learner and exhibitor registration, a branded mobile conference app for iOS and Android, and “text-to-claim” capabilities.

Stay tuned for more information as the new CloudCME system rolls out.

View upcoming courses on the UCSF CME website: cme.ucsf.edu