The fields of medicine and science never stop moving forward—and neither should family physicians. Physicians are expected to deliver safe, effective, cost-effective, compassionate care, based on best practice and evidence. Accredited Continuing Medical Education (CME) helps make that happen.

Family physicians can count on accredited CME to provide a protected space to learn and teach without commercial influence. Participation in accredited CME helps physicians meet requirements for maintenance of licensure, maintenance of certification, credentialing, membership in professional societies, and other professional privileges.

CAFP has been recognized by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) as an exemplary provider of CME achieving Accreditation with Commendation since 2007. Only 21 percent of ACCME-accredited providers achieve accreditation with commendation. This six-year award recognizes the quality of the educational activities and the initiatives sponsored by the organization, which are intended to foster leadership, encourage collaboration with other stakeholders.  It recognizes excellence in integrating CME into efforts to improve professional practice and quality of care and exemplary adherence to the standards for accreditation.

Accredited organizations are responsible for demonstrating they meet all requirements for delivering independent CME that accelerates learning, change, and improvement in health care, including the standards for independent content and management of commercial support.  CAFP meets ACCME’s standards for commercial support, which means that all our education is free of commercial influence and bias.

Commercial support of education allows us to offer accredited education at a more reasonable cost to more health care professionals. All CME grants are given and accepted with the knowledge that a commercial company may not influence or control the content, speaker selection, or any other part of the CME activity in any way.

In addition, all faculty, speakers, planners and others with the potential to influence content must disclose any conflicts of interest which CAFP then manages and fully discloses to learners prior to participating in the education.

The California Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP) recognizes that you are a life-long learner who has chosen to engage in continuing medical education to identify or fill a gap in knowledge or skill; and to attain or enhance a desired competency. As part of CAFP’s duty to you as a learner, you have the right to expect that your continuing medical education experience with CAFP includes the following:

Content that:

• Promotes improvements or quality in health care
• Is current, valid, reliable, accurate and evidence-based
• Addresses the stated objectives or purpose
• Is driven and based on independent survey and analysis of learner needs, not commercial interests
• Has been reviewed for bias and scientific rigor
• Offers balanced presentations that are free of commercial bias
• Is vetted through a process that resolves any conflicts of interest of planners and faculty
• Is evaluated for its effectiveness in meeting the identified educational need

A learning environment that:

• Is based on adult learning principles that support the use of various modalities
• Supports learners’ abilities to meet their individual needs
• Respects the learner’s cognitive load limits and need to understand, as well as how to apply, the new learning
• Respects and attends to any special needs of the learners
• Is inclusive and respects the diversity of groups of learners
• Is free of promotional, commercial and/or sales activities
• Offers learners to opportunity to ask questions
• Offers access to materials on demand after the conference

Disclosure of:

• Relevant financial relationships that planners, teachers and authors have with commercial interests related to the content of the activity
• Commercial support (funding or in-kind resources) of this activity