Pediatric Informatics: Computer Applications in Child Health (Health ...

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exchange is redundant and will become progressively worse as accountability and
reporting requirements increase.
Information technology (IT) standards for healthcare education and competence
assessment provide an efficient way to exchange important professional development
and credentialing data among these organizations. We will describe IT
standards that support the education, assessment and maintenance of certification
of physicians and how they are implemented to support the evolving CPD of
pediatricians.
14.2 Standards in Healthcare Education and Assessment
IT standards and specifications relevant to healthcare education and competence
assessment have been created for use by organizations that create, manage and track
CME activities and data. The MedBiquitous Consortium, an American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards development organization (SDO),
has created a number of specifications for exchanging structured (electronic) data
about CME and certification. 5
MedBiquitous standards can be divided into four categories:
Standards for tracking and evaluating professional education and certification
activities
Standards for discovering relevant education and information resources
Standards for exchanging healthcare education content
Standards for coordinating and tracking of competence assessment data
14.2.1 Standards for Tracking and Evaluating Professional
Education and Certification Activities
14.2.1.1 Activity Report
The Activity Report provides a common format for an individual’s professional
education and certification accomplishments. With this draft standard, education
and certification activities can be tracked across organizations. Organizations using
the Activity Reports can collect CME and certification data to create individual
e-portfolio systems that allow physicians to track their own professional activities.
14.2.1.2 Medical Education Metrics (MEMS)
MEMS provide a consistent format and data structure for representing aggregate
evaluation data for a given learning activity. With this draft standard, healthcare