Claim MOC credits for your patient safety work
By Claude Laflamme, FRCPC
Did you know that your everyday efforts in patient safety may qualify for MOC credits?
It’s true. I’ve gained numerous insights from my experiences working with Enhanced Recovery Canada (ERC), a program that is leading the drive to improve surgical outcomes across the country. What’s more, a lot of those efforts qualify for credits under the MOC framework of CPD activities.
Here is one example of how I turned a memorable learning experience into MOC credits, as well as some ideas of how you can report on your own efforts and patient safety work.
Active listening can inspire personal reflection
Patients can teach us a lot, if we choose to listen.
I’ll never forget one particular meeting with the ERC board, which I chair. Our multidisciplinary board members were discussing at length what the next steps could be for spreading ERC principles beyond Colorectal Surgery to more disciplines. There were many different opinions on how we could achieve maximum impact and no consensus.
Then, our patient representative spoke up.
She said, “What operation is most frequently performed in those disciplines? We should start there.”
Well, you could have heard a pin drop. It was devastatingly practical advice and yet such an eye-opener for us pontificating academics. We said, “You know what? This is exactly what we should do!”
MOC credit opportunitiesClaim personal learning project credits: The board discussion and “aha moment” described above was an opportunity for Royal College Fellows on the board to reflect on a clinical question or issue, in this case, “what are the next steps for spreading ERC principles to other disciplines?” Fellows could each claim their own reflections and resulting conclusions for their own scopes of practice for two credits per hour as a Personal Learning Project (PLP). Apply this to your practice by talking to your peers and colleagues. Decide amongst yourselves, in your own organizations, what patient safety issue you would like to tackle and optimize first. Consider taking a cue from the patient representative on our ERC board — what’s the most frequent thing you do? Or, what is your practice’s most perceived weakness? The resulting learning that you do can be claimed as a PLP. Claim committee credits: If, like me, you are participating in committee or working group like ERC that is addressing patient safety or quality care issues, then you can claim 15 credits per year for committee work under Section 2: Self-learning. Claim clinical practice guideline development credits: If you are contributing to the development of guidelines for clinical practice at your local institution, such as an ERC clinical pathway for Colorectal Surgery, you can claim 20 credits per year for this type of work under Section 2: Systems Learning. Think about your own work and roles — MOC credit opportunities await! |
