Maryland Nurses Association: Education - Continuing Education Approver

Continuing Education Program Approval

for Provider/Learner Paced Activities

As a result of the changes from ANCC, the Maryland Nurses Continuing Education Approver Committee (CEAC) has also developed a new manual reflecting the updated guidelines and revised the cover application.

Highlights of ANCC changes effective August 1, 2009:

1. Educational Design:

With the new changes, activities must be submitted in their entirety if the length of the activity is 3 hours or less in length. For activities lasting over 3 hours, documentation using the educational design form need to be submitted for a representative 3 hours of the activity. This means, for example, if the activity includes concurrent sessions and workshops, an educational design should be submitted for each since there are different formats included in the activity. Documentation for the complete activity needs to be on file and accessible if requested by MNA CEAC. Handouts and copies of slides may continue be used in conjunction with the five column outline to detail the content of a session.

Contact hours continue to be calculated using a 60 min hour (60 min=1 contact hour). The minimum amount of contact hours that may be awarded is 0.5 contact hours (30 minutes).

2. Application: Most of the required elements are presented in a mulitiple-choice, check-the-box format to make it quicker and less cumbersome for the applicant. If the offered choices are not appropriate, the applicant may either identify the choice "other" with a short description or attach as a separate page. We have expanded some categories with some new choices to facilitate completion. We encourage applicants to insert appropriate text where indicated to avoid preparing a separate document. Most questions just require a short description or answer.

Activities may now be co-provided and this section is expanded in the new manual to explain ANCC requirements for maintaining and monitoring adherence to criteria.

Nurse planners must maintain expertise in educational design and adult learning theories. This information needs to be evident on the application or bioform. Nurse planners must also demonstrate an orientation to the ANCC-MNA accreditation program. Pending development of a web-based program, the MNA-CEAC will be presenting an orientation/update about the accreditation program at the MNA convention on October 15^th at 3PM. Only one nurse with a BSN or higher degree is required on the planning committee.

Each educational activity should be planned collaboratively by at least one designated Nurse Planner and one other planner. The Nurse planner must be a registered nurse and hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing or higher degree in nursing.

All activities need to include a statement that explains how long contact hour(s) will be awarded for an activity on all enduring documents. For example, this would mean for a web-based program noting the expiration date for continuing education credit on marketing materials and on the web-site.

For organizations that provide their own completion certificates, the approval statement provided by ANCC-MNA must stand alone, starting and ending on a line separate from other text.

3.    Biographical data: Bioforms and conflict of interest statements must be submitted with the application for the planning committee members, administrative contact, and presenters listed on the submitted educational design. These forms should be on file for all presenters, planning committee members, and administrative contact and accessible if requested by MNA CEAC.

4.    Fees:   Fees have been increased slightly for provider-directed and learner-paced activities for the first time since 2003. The non-refundable fee for an ED I activity is $80.00 plus $8.00 for each contact hour requested.

Since we are now required to have a minimum of two reviewers per application, we need to more stringently enforce our application deadlines. A late fee in the amount of $100.00 will be charged for any application received between four and eight weeks before the initial presentation date. Packets received between two and four weeks will be charged a $200 late fee. Packets arriving less than 2 weeks prior to the first scheduled presentation date are discouraged and only reviewed pending availability of CEAC members and completeness of the application.

5.    Vested Interest Declaration and Commercial Support: New to the guidelines is a requirement that all presenters must complete and submit a vested interest declaration form in order to disclose any vested interests in or affiliations with any organization with a direct interest in the educational content of an approved continuing education activity. A templated form is provided by MNA in the new guidelines.

In addition, if any form of commercial support is provided for an activity, ANCC has provided requirements detailed in the guidelines to ensure providers maintain control of the educational content and learners are informed of all financial relationships between the commercial supporter and provider. This requirement is met through completion of the designated question on the application.

6.    Learners informed of conflicts of interest and commercial support: ANCC has long had a requirement to detail how learners will be informed regarding conflicts of interest and commercial support, and how these conflicts are resolved. This section has been expanded in the application in accordance with the 2009 ANCC criteria.

7. Constants: A lot of things did not change. Applicants still must phrase objectives in behavioral terms and a list of suggested terms is included in the new manual. The 5 column educational design format must be used to provide content that will address the objectives. Record keeping requirements also stayed the same. To assist applicants in understanding the actual review process, we have also included a copy of the review criteria in the new manual as well.

I hope that these highlights will help you in adapting to the new guidelines. As you use the new manuals please let us know if any of the materials are unclear or need revision.

As the chair of the Continuing Education Approver Committee, I am committed to serving our constituency of continuing education applicants and making the application and review procedure a user-friendly process. Thank you for your support of our program in the past and we hope to continue to assist in your continuing education need s in the future. Please let me know if we can assist you in any way or if you have any questions about the new guidelines.

Janice Agazio

PhD, CRNP, RN

Chair

Continuing Education Approver Committee

Maryland Nurses Association

Continuing Education Criteria

CEAC Provider/Learner Paced

CEAC Approved Provider

Necessary forms for submission are listed above. Once all materials are complete they should be submitted in triplicate along with the necessary fees to:

Maryland Nurses Association
21 Governor's Court, Suite 195
Baltimore, Maryland 21244-2721

Continuing Education Program Activity Announcements
Please see the MNA Calendar for Association sponsored programs and activities.