the ACC Has Over 300 FREE Educational Opportunities Many of Which Offer CME Available
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The ACC is continually working to develop tools and resources to support its members in their pursuit of providing high quality cardiovascular care. The ACC’s new strategic plan this year was formed to help steer College initiatives so that we may increase the ability for our members to transform cv care and improve heart health. Full physician paying members receive nearly $3,000 in membership benefits with their ACC membership and care team members, nearly $2,500.
ALL MEMBERS:
Education
- The ACC has over 300 FREE educational opportunities—many of which offer CME—available to members online
- The ACC has launched new publications for members, including the JACC: Heart Failure magazine and the CSWN publications. The ACC is also launching a new JACC Journal focused on Clinical Electrophysiology early next year
o ACC has also made the JACC journals available on iPad and iPhone AND improved the journal to include new features like:
. Article Summary Illustrations
. Author and Editorial Perspectives on New Research
. In-depth review articles on hot topics
. Audio summaries on all articles
. Special interest columns like FIT/Early Career, International and Leadership
- The ACC has continued to expand in order to meet the needs of the entire cardiovascular team, expanding membership to be inclusive of cardiovascular rehab professionals, cv technologists, geriatricians, and cardiovascular team members outside the US
- The ACC continues to provide access to guidelines and regular updates on the latest in the field with newsletters on specific clinical topics as well as advocacy and broad-based CV content. We help you stay up to date on the latest developments in the field that affect you, your patients and your practice, including developments with health care policy and clinical care
- ACC conducts regular webinars to help members with everything from:
o Adapting to changes in health care—like preparing for ICD-10
o Coding updates o Quality improvement strategies—like lowering readmission/mortality rates
o Designing compensation models
o Integrating quality programs into your CV Service line
o Public reporting
o Integration
o Advancing your career and MORE.
Career Advancement
- The ACC is always working to provide members with specific interest or specialty areas an outlet to learn, network and advance priorities within their particular are of interest. As a result, the ACC has again expanded their membership Sections by another 6 areas—bringing the number of Sections to 16. These Sections provide a unique blend of forum and network, helping members with like interests to find one another and work on special-interest projects. Sections include:
o Academic Cardiology o Geriatric Cardiology
o Adult Congenital & Pediatric CV o Heart Failure & Transplant
o CV Imaging o Interventional Cardiology
o CV Management o Peripheral Vascular Disease
o CV Team o Prevention of CV Disease
o Early Career Professionals o Sports & Exercise Cardiology
o Electrophysiology o Surgeons
o Federal Cardiology o Women in Cardiology
- ACC launched the new Mentoring Program to connect budding cardiovascular professionals with established members looking to give back to the next generation of CV professionals
- ACC launched the new Research Funding Resources platform designed to help those looking for cardiovascular grant funding to find it faster and easier
- ACC launched the International Exchange Opportunities Database, designed to help members target potential host institutions and experiences for those interested in visiting an institution abroad - ACC launched the new CSWN for FITs and Early Career Professionals to connect fellow in training and early career members with advice on everything from managing your career, and landing a new position, to getting published and building your practice and more.
- Established the Medical Resident membership category to enable those who are in their medical residency to gain free access to ACC’s tools and resources to help support them in their decision making and provide them with guidance as they decide to subspecialize
- Quality
- The ACC launched the Quality Improvement for Institutions program, providing assessment, monitoring and evaluation tools that transform clinical data into practical solutions that can make a difference in patients’ lives.
o The foundation of the QII program is ACC’s NCDR (National Cardiovascular Data Registry) which offers clinical data capture and national benchmark reporting on catheter based interventions, ICD implantations, acute coronary syndrome, congenital heart disease and peripheral vascular disease.
o Also included in QII are ACC’s existing quality initiatives called Door to Balloon, hospital to Home and Surviving MI. These initiatives disseminate evidence-based strategies and promote best practice sharing. Self-assessments, toolkits, webinars and online stories are part of these programs.
o NCDR has expanded to be not only national, but also international, in an effort to help institutions around the world capture and analyze their data to improve care they provide patients
- ACC launched the International Centers of Excellence program, which recognizes institutions worldwide for their commitment to patient care, continuing education and quality.
- The ACC has launched 9 clinical communities to help cardiovascular professionals learn more and discuss topics related to specific disease states and treatment options
- ACC has created mobile resources in a format friendly for use at point of care on your mobile or tablet device including:
o Anticoag Evaluator app for use to assess stroke and bleeding risk and the benefits and risks of antithrombotic therapy in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation
o CardioSmart Explorer app designed to enhance the clinician/patient relationship at point of care. It features cardiac graphics and animations to help physicians effectively review and discuss common heart problems and treatment options with patients
o The ASCVD Risk Estimator, published jointly between ACC and AHA, helps health care providers and patients estimate 10-year and lifetime risks for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease using the pooled cohort equations and lifetime risk prediction tools. It provides easy access to recommendations specific to calculated risk estimates and includes easily accessible guideline reference information for both providers and patients related to therapy, monitoring and lifestyle
o ACC Advocacy Action app designed to help members engage with lawmakers and influence health policy. It includes an interactive congressional directory to locate lawmakers, timely talking points to share during congressional visits and an event scheduler to keep track of Capitol Hill meetings and social media tools to engage with legislators.
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- DOMESTIC:
- MOC
- The ACC has advocated on members’ behalf to ABIM regarding member frustration and dissatisfaction with ABIM’s new MOC requirements and processes.
o President Patrick T. O’Gara attended an open forum with 25 other professional societies affected by the MOC process at the Internal Medicine Summit on July 15. Dr. O’Gara voiced members’ concerns to ABIM and made a number of recommendations resulting in ABIM sending a letter to the Internal Medicine community responding to a number of the concerns. The Letter:
. Stated that ABIM board members agree the exam must evolve over time and that any future changes related to content, format, delivery, feedback, etc. will need to support the use of the exam as a summative assessment tool that signifies competence within the disciplines of IM
. Addressed MOC Part IV and stated that it will be the area of the MOC program that will change most in the next 12-24 months. It acknowledged Part IV has generated the most intense negative feedback
. Clarified ABIM does not believe MOC should be required for Maintenance of Licensure. In states where licensure includes required CME, MOC should count for those and any other knowledge or quality improvement requirements
o ACC has created an online MOC Resource Center to help member make sense of the new requirements and what they need to do to meet them
o ACC has made MOC modules FREE to ACC members to help alleviate some of the cost burden
- INTERNATIONAL: - The ACC has opened up complimentary membership to Fellows in Training around the world, to ensure they have access to our information, tools and resources to help them succeed in their training and beyond
- We’ve expanded to now have 32 international country chapters, which increases opportunities for collaboration with national societies and provides our members located outside the US with a local branch of the ACC
- We’ve grown to nearly 11,000 members strong outside the US and become inclusive of all members of the cardiovascular team (Nurses, Pharmacists and Physician Assistants) to help bring all members of the care team around the table for key discussions
- We’ve expanded our quality programs internationally with the International Centers of Excellence program, which recognizes institutions worldwide for their commitment to patient care, continuing education and quality.
- ACC continues to create partnerships to bring educational programs worldwide outside the US to ensure all members can more easily gain access to ACC’s live education opportunities
- CARDIOVASCULAR TEAM:
- ACC has expanded to be inclusive of cardiovascular rehabilitation professionals and technologists
- Over 60 Cardiovascular Team members are currently serving on ACC committees, in addition to participating in Cardiovascular Team Section-led committees, ensuring that the care team perspective is heard in College deliberations
- The ACC has established a new national-level Distinguished Award to annually recognize a CV Team member for contributions to the ACC community
- Established a Cardiovascular Team Student membership category to provide free access to ACC’s tools and resources for those currently in training who have an interest in pursuing cardiovascular medicine as a specialty