The University of Utah Continuing Medical Education (CME) Office offers quality improvement (QI) activities to meet the continuing certification credit requirements of American Board of Medical Specialty (ABMS) Member Boards and National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA). The office's Sahar Pastel-Daneshgar, MOC Coordinator, and Richard H. Wiggins, III, Associate Dean of CME, write that the ABMS Portfolio Program encourages submission to multiple boards and the development of multidisciplinary initiatives for physicians and physician assistants (PAs). Since the office attained sponsorship in 2014, nearly 1,000 clinicians and 60 PAs have received credit from 18 ABMS Member Boards and NCCPA, respectively, for participating in one or more QI activities through the program. To maximize the number of healthcare providers receiving credit for completed work, the office established a system to ease integration Performance Improvement-Continuing Medical Education (PI-CME) within QI projects. "Typically, we are able to award 20 PI-CME credits per project across disciplines, and these credits are available to all clinicians who comprise the care team — not just physicians and PAs, but registered nurses, medical assistants and other allied health staff," the authors write. Educational activities developed by the office advance dissemination and implementation of recent scientific innovations, patient safety, reducing medical errors, prescribing optimization and effective referral. "Through our QI projects, we see demonstrable, measurable outcomes as they happen and their resulting community health impact," the researchers note. A return-on-investment analysis in 2019 calculated an estimated productivity investment of $1.73 million for the Portfolio Program. The authors conclude that sponsoring a Portfolio Program enhanced the institution's accreditation status and promotes a wide-ranging ecosystem of quality and safety.

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