Abstract
EBAP holds a central overarching position across Europe and overseas as an independent accreditor of training centres and educational activities with transferable and recognised CME/CPD points across countries https://bit.ly/3uZb5WT
Introduction
Advances in respiratory medicine have presented a clear need for the continuous training and accreditation of health professionals, as well as of institutions providing and delivering care to respiratory patients.
Beyond earning qualifications, continuing medical education (CME) and continuing professional development (CPD) aim to improve professional standards, and maintain and develop the knowledge, skills and competencies of respiratory care professionals to thrive in a constantly evolving environment. The fulfilment of these objectives implies a multidimensional approach that will aim to safeguard appropriate patient care and promote trust in health professionals [1].
As healthcare professionals we need to ensure that we identify our educational needs and learning preferences, and we acquire the knowledge and skills to succeed in daily clinical practice and deliver high quality patient care. There is a great variety of available and accessible learning resources, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has further improved their accessibility. Education providers have revisited the delivery of medical education during consecutive lockdowns. Therefore, educational medical activities have been completely digitalised and can be delivered solely online, should the need be. Adapting to these new needs, the European Respiratory Society (ERS) delivered its first virtual annual congress in 2020, to excellent feedback, and has paved the way for other scientific societies.
The need for structured and validated CME across all specialties has been integrated into annual appraisal and revalidation in many countries. CMEs need to be directed to the individual's annual professional development plan and, in a broader sense, CME has become a part of good medical practice and is mandated by several governing medical associations worldwide. The cost of CME/CPD activities is not solely covered by the employer and, on occasions, healthcare professionals self-fund their CME activities or try to identify other funding sources. The combination of these factors with the educational needs to be covered and the possibility of self-funding makes health professionals more demanding and selective in choosing high quality unbiased educational activities. Considering the significant number of education providers (university, college, private/public sector, hospitals, etc.) the selection is even more difficult.
Meanwhile, the lack of harmonisation of education systems and training infrastructures across Europe, in combination with the free movement of health professionals across Europe as per the European Directive 2005/36/EC, poses the challenge and need of obtaining accredited transferrable CMEs. The European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology (EBAP) has addressed this need by accrediting respiratory CME activities. EBAP accreditation does not compete with the national accreditation bodies and has a complementary role to it. Based on free movement of healthcare professionals, the ERS and EBAP strongly and actively support the harmonisation of training for respiratory specialists and the subsequent accreditation of respiratory training centres across Europe to address the current diversity and ensure better harmonised patient care across Europe.
The evolving role of EBAP
EBAP is an independent, not-for-profit organisation which accredits CME activities and training centres in respiratory medicine according to strict quality criteria [2, 3].
It plays a key overarching role in this process bringing together all stakeholders and ensuring high quality respiratory education and its implementation in the delivery of care. EBAP CMEs are internationally recognised and transferrable across Europe and can be integrated in all European training curricula.
EBAP has actively evolved over the years to meet the ever-changing needs of respiratory education and delivery of care as dictated by various changes including the COVID-19 pandemic. It was initially founded in 2002 as a UEMS (European Union of Medical Specialists) board constituted by both the ERS and the UEMS; it was dissolved in 2007 only to be reformed in 2008 with a new constitution. The ERS and FERS (Forum of European Respiratory Societies), renamed to CERS (Conference of European Respiratory Societies), are since then the two bodies eligible to nominate EBAP Management Council members.
The EBAP Management Council is constituted of eight members (figure 1) with different subspecialty interests within respiratory medicine and a clear focus in education. The EBAP Management Council with the EBAP President work closely with UEMS, CERS and ERS, to ensure unbiased and objective accreditation of educational activities and training centres and set the strategic plan to deliver accreditation based on evolving educational needs.
European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology (EBAP) management board. CERS: Conference of European Respiratory Societies; UEMS: European Union of Medical Specialists; ERS: European Respiratory Society.
Accreditation offered by EBAP: meeting new needs
EBAP has progressed from accrediting live events with clear educational value (e.g. congresses, courses and seminars) and CME articles to e-learning resources, webcasts and virtual educational activities, as well as hybrid formats and event replays. As respiratory congresses have evolved over the years with gradually increased patient participation in them, EBAP has also accredited scientific activities where patients had an active faculty role, with the European Lung Foundation playing a binding role between EBAP, ERS and patients.
Over the past decade, EBAP accreditation has further evolved into the ERS HERMES examination (in 2012) and accrediting reviewing and authorship activities (2013). As of 2014, EBAP joined forces with the ERS in launching the European Accreditation of Training Centres in Respiratory Medicine. This voluntary accreditation process is open to all adult European training centres composed of either a single participating training centre or, alternatively, of a number of training sites. This initiative has opened the way towards harmonisation in respiratory education. It will assist centres to achieve higher quality training by benchmarking themselves against other European Respiratory Training Centres [2, 4].
In 2014, EBAP renewed its cooperation agreement with the UEMS/EACCME (European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education) under which all live educational events applications in the field of respiratory medicine will be evaluated by EBAP. EBAP will review the quality and independence of the CME events according to EACCME's accreditation guidelines.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of education providers and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, industry started playing a more active role in educating health professionals and advocating for accreditation bodies to support their delivery of CME [5, 6].
In response to this, and to ensure unbiased high quality respiratory education, EBAP issued their new accreditation guidelines (2017), in which the guidelines have been revised and re-organised to include additional criteria specifically related to sponsored activities.
In 2018, EBAP introduced the “Mark of Excellence” which is a quality stamp aiming to distinguish ordinary from extra-ordinary learning activities. The “Mark of Excellence” is intended to serve as a motivation and reward system for providers in the development of bespoke learning activities.
EBAP has efficiently adapted to emerging learning needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has provided fast track accreditation for COVID-19 webinars. In support of the scientific community, EBAP accelerated the accreditation process down to a few days ahead of the webinar start date.
EBAP's collaborations to promote harmonisation
In 2018, EBAP joined CME-EA (Continuing Medical Education – European Accreditors) with the aim to join forces in harmonisation of CPD accreditation through dialogue and consensus in Europe. This highlights its longstanding role in promoting equitable and high-quality learning opportunities across the European countries and ensure high quality respiratory care is delivered amid free professional movement.
EBAP has been deemed as substantively equivalent to the CPD accreditation system of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Acknowledging CME is not confined solely to congresses and courses, etc., but that it is also an integral part of training on the job, EBAP has launched a partnership with UpToDate. This partnership will allow respiratory medical professionals to receive recognition for the ongoing professional development that takes place while researching clinical questions.
The uniqueness of EBAP
The overarching role of EBAP across Europe and overseas with its new international collaborations ensures the accreditation of transferrable and recognised CME/CPD points across countries. Respiratory physicians can obtain CME/CPD points that can be part of their portfolio and appraisal/revalidation in different countries, regardless of the country of origin, therefore their free professional movement is not hindered. Education providers will be able to attract more participants to educational events that will offer transferrable and recognised CME/CPD points.
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Footnotes
Conflict of interest: M. Lichtblau has received payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations and speakers’ bureau from MSD, travel support from Janssen and Orpha Swiss, and is a member of an MSD advisory board. O. Karg has received payment or honoraria for CME article reviews from Springer, payment for medical language examinations from the Bavarian Medical Chamber, payment for physician assistants’ teaching from Leadership Board membership, Educational Academy, German Respiratory Society. L. Nicod has received payment or honoraria for lectures and presentations from GSK, travel support from AstraZeneca, advisory board payment from OM Pharma, and owns stocks in Roche, Novartis and Merck. G. Hardavella, A.H. Andreassen, J. Jubrail, E. Jusufovic, A. Petroianni and P. Palange have nothing to disclose.
- Received November 30, 2022.
- Accepted December 10, 2022.
- Copyright ©The authors 2023. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org
