ASNC's CME Mission Statement

American Society of Nuclear Cardiology
CME Program Mission Statement

Purpose of CME Program:
The purpose of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology's (ASNC) Continuing Medical Education (CME) Program is to promote lifelong learning with high quality evidence-based didactic and interactive educational opportunities. These CME activities are designed to advance physicians competence, enhance practice performance, promote patient safety, and where possible, improve patient outcomes. It is our goal to develop creative educational activities that clearly link the needs of the learner with the planning process, format, and delivery of each activity, resulting in enhanced knowledge, practice skills, and improved patient health and care. 

Target Audience:
The target audience for ASNC's CME activities includes cardiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, radiologists, applied or basic scientists, technologists, and other health care professionals whose specific interest and expertise is predominantly within the field of nuclear cardiology. ASNC will provide educational activities in other cardiovascular imaging modalities, particularly cardiac computed tomography, to meet the educational needs of our members who incorporate other imaging modalities into their practice of nuclear cardiology.

Content Areas:
ASNC utilizes the ABMS, IOM, and ACGME core competencies as a basis for the content areas of our CME activities, which includes clinical care, medical knowledge, professionalism, communication skills, practice-based improvement, and systems-based practice. With these core competencies as a platform, content is developed based on the needs of our physician audience and frequently includes, but is not limited to: (1) basic concepts of imaging, (2) acquisition and processing techniques, (3) clinical guidelines, (4) quality assurance, and (5) current research findings relevant to our target audience. 

Types of Activities Provided:
In order to accomplish the goals of the ASNC CME program, the education department will offer a range of activity types, all based on adult learning principles, which includes ASNC's Annual Meeting that features multiple educational tracks and sessions, smaller national meetings focused on a particular topic for a targeted segment of our membership, internet-based/online enduring materials, and CME activities in ASNC's Journal of Nuclear Cardiology. ASNC will also begin development of CME activities related to newsletters, podcasts, and performance improvement. The educational design and methods for delivery of CME activities are designed to allow for different learning styles and take into consideration the identified need, content to be addressed, and expected results of the activity. 

Expected Results:
ASNC is committed to assessing the impact and effectiveness of its CME program. The ASNC CME program fulfills its mission of advancing physician competence and clinical performance by providing high quality activities. ASNC is committed to providing a CME program with the expected result of changes in the areas of: (1) physicians' knowledge and perceived self-efficacy in clinical practice, (2) physicians' strategies, or skills and abilities to perform a task, and/or (3) physician performance. The following methods will be used to assess ASNC's CME activities:

  • Consistent use of post-activity evaluation tools and/or audience response technology that measure immediate participant learning and determine change in strategies or skills.
  • Follow-up outcomes measurements 3-6 months after the CME activity to determine change in performance in practice on the basis of what participants learned from the activity.
Data gathered from these evaluation processes will enable the ASNC Education Committee to determine the effectiveness of the overall CME program in addressing identified practice gaps.