We’re excited to announce the launch of a new PCORI initiative—accredited professional education activities for clinicians in areas that highlight our unique contributions to patient-centered outcomes research and clinical knowledge. This effort reflects PCORI’s mission of not only funding clinical research to answer patients’ important questions but also making new evidence available to the healthcare community and encouraging high-quality patient-centered research nationwide.

Through a program of Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Continuing Education (CE), we look forward to supporting professional excellence in medical, nursing, and pharmacy practice and patient care and strengthening our relationships with clinicians, whose contributions are invaluable to our activities and the research we fund. Our continuing education program will be offered free of charge, and all members of the healthcare community are welcome to take advantage of it.

Upcoming CME/CE Opportunities

Our initial two educational activities will be available at the end of May. The first is a series of online modules addressing research study design and PCORI’s Methodology Standards. Baylor College of Medicine developed this course for PCORI and, through a variety of providers, will offer accreditation for physicians, physician assistants (PAs), registered nurses, and pharmacists. An interactive webinar will follow the release of the online modules.

The second educational activity will focus on early findings of PCORI’s funded research comparing intravenous (usually via a catheter placed in the arm) and oral antibiotic treatment for osteomyelitis in children after they leave the hospital. For this opportunity, PRIME Education, an accredited provider of medical and professional education, has created a video of a panel discussion. The audience for this activity differs somewhat from the Baylor course. Clinicians eligible for the PRIME CME/CE activity are physicians, PAs, specialty nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, medical and pharmacy directors, case managers, and members of hospital and health-system quality improvement teams.

Baylor and PRIME, our partners in this initiative, work with many accreditation bodies, including the Accreditation Council of Continuing Medical Education, American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the Accreditation Council of Pharmacy Education.

As in all our work, we have engaged patients, clinicians, and other stakeholders through the planning and presentation of our continuing education activities. All CME/CE activities will be easily accessible via a link on our website.

Collaborating with Clinicians

In offering CME and CE, we continue to build on our collaborative relationships with clinicians. They participate in PCORI activities as researchers, merit reviewers, advisory panelists, Ambassadors, and members of the workgroups we convene to guide our process of prioritizing topics for research funding. We’re eager to reach out to other clinicians who may wish to share their knowledge by becoming involved in PCORI and the type of research we fund. Clinicians are critical to our success.

We plan to develop additional educational activities that reflect PCORI's contributions to patient-centered outcomes research. Let us know what topics interest you.