CAPC Continuing Education Mission, Policy, and Planning Activities

The mission of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) education department is to promote evidence based palliative care learning for health care professionals, with the ultimate goal of improving patient care and health outcomes. Target audiences for these educational initiatives include nurses (advanced practice registered nurses, registered nurses, licensed nurses), physicians, social workers, pharmacists, and other health care professionals as appropriate. These practitioners may be at the novices (e.g., students or those new to health care), experts, or very seasoned providers.

CAPC addresses this mission through the development of palliative care educational activities that fill the needs of clinical issues in palliative care. This includes palliative care knowledge gaps, quality, or performance issues. CAPC employs a range of educational methods that are suitable to the content, topic, and target audience, and are free from commercial bias or influence. In order to be the most effective, CAPC evaluates the value and impact of its educational activities and strives to continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of this work.

Each educational activity released by CAPC is planned and implemented through an expert interdisciplinary planning team. As experts, they have a pulse on palliative care, including gaps in care and updates in evidence based practice in a changing health environment. CAPC utilizes summative and formative evaluation of education activities to guide the needs of members.

CAPC provides continuing education awards across disciplines. Currently, CAPC awards continuing education disciplines for case managers, nurses, physicians, physician assistants, and social workers. A printable Certificate of Completion is available for all courses upon completion of a set of post-course questions. For more information about which continuing education credits and/or education resources will be accepted by your credentialing body, please contact them directly.

Course work does not constitute clinical advice; however, each course has been verified for accuracy and evidence by the CAPC course directors and the CAPC continuing review committee. The opinions expressed in the courses are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CAPC’s sponsors, or the supporter. Prior to implementing care, please review complete prescribing information of specific medications or combinations of drugs, including indications, contraindications, warnings, and adverse effects before administering pharmacologic therapy to patients.

CAPC educational activities do not contain information on commercial products/devices that are unlabeled for use or investigational uses of products not yet approved.

It is the policy of CAPC to ensure objectivity, balance, independence, transparency, and scientific rigor in all CME-provided educational activities per the highest standards of ANCC and ACGME guidelines. There may be other collaborating organizations depending on the topic. For all courses, Faculty/Presenters/Authors/Content Reviewers complete conflict of interest forms to determine any potential bias or conflict of interest. Disclosures are available for each activity.

All rights reserved by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). No materials may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.

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Nurses (Registered Nurses, Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical/Vocational Nurses)

CAPC plans and implements education activities in accordance with the highest level of nursing continuing education, The American Nurses Credentialing Center, which is accepted by most state boards of nursing for licensure, certification, and credentialing.

CAPC courses are approved for nursing contact hours by the following organizations:

• The Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, an accredited approver of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation
• The Connecticut Nurses’ Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation

In addition, some courses offer pharmacotherapeutic hours for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses as required for maintenance of national certification by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).

Physicians

CAPC plans and implements educational activities in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the providership of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Successful completion of some CME activities, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn MOC credits in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.

Physician Assistants

CAPC plans and implements educational activities in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) which is accepted for credit by The American Academy of Physicians Assistants (AAPA) Physician Assistants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Social Workers

CAPC plans and implements educational activities in accordance with the National Association of Social Workers and the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work.