Chronic conditions place a serious strain on every patient they touch and on the entire health care system.
The AMA Education Center offers a searchable library of more than 1,000 CME activities, including CME focused on chronic-disease management and prevention. Most of these online courses offer AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and nearly all are free.
Nutrition Science for Health and Longevity: What Every Physician Needs to Know. This is self-paced, three-hour course was created by the Gaples Institute for Integrative Cardiology. It consists of four modules:
- “Why Does Nutrition Matter to your patents?”
- “Dietary Fats and Patient Health”
- “Helping Your Patients Understand Carbohydrates and Protein”
- “Counseling Your Patients About Nutrition.”
The nonprofit Gaples Institute’s mission has a focus on “nutrition and lifestyle changes for prevention of heart disease.” AMA members receive a special discount.
Prevent Diabetes STAT. This free module is focused on prediabetes as a treatable condition and is based on the Prevent Diabetes STAT—Screen/Test/Act-Today™—program from the AMA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The material is designed for internists, family physicians, preventive medicine physicians and ob-gyns. Physicians will gain insights into the epidemiology of prediabetes, the effectiveness of the diabetes prevention program, and how to identify and refer patients to a CDC-recognized program.
Target: BP™ Improvement Program. A joint project of the AMA and American Heart Association, Target BP is the gateway to several free CME modules. These include:
- “The Importance of Measuring Blood Pressure Accurately.”
- “Using Self-Measured Blood Pressure Monitoring to Diagnose and Manage High Blood Pressure.” “Lifestyle Interventions for the Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension.”
4 offerings from AMA STEPS Forward
STEPS Forward™ is an open-access platform featuring more than 50 modules that offer actionable, expert-driven strategies and insights supported by downloadable tools.
Based on best practices from the field, STEPS Forward modules empower practices to identify areas or opportunities for improvement, set meaningful and achievable goals, and implement transformative changes designed to increase operational efficiencies, elevate clinical team engagement, and improve patient care.
Here are four free modules on chronic conditions from this distinctively designed, and resource-packed collection of practice improvement resources are.
Preventing Type 2 Diabetes in At-Risk Patients. The focus of this module, developed in cooperation with the CDC, is education, screening and referral to local programs. Course materials include eight downloadable tools, including patient handouts, as well as brief video case studies of practices that have put prediabetes screening and education programs in place.
Managing Type 2 Diabetes: A Team-Based Approach. This module describes a six-step, team approach, including engaging your practice staff team, evaluating the impact of poor glycemic control among your patients, and selection of one aspect of diabetes care for the team to address first—such as helping patients understand their glycated hemoglobin numbers. The module has two practice case studies and offers 33 downloadable tools, including patient-counseling materials in English and Spanish.
Improving Blood Pressure Control. This module is built around the M.A.P. program created by an initiative led by AMA and Johns Hopkins Medicine. M.A.P. stands for Measure blood pressure accurately, Act rapidly to manage uncontrolled blood pressures, and Partner with patients, families and communities. The course materials include ten downloadable tools and three case studies.
Implementing Health Coaching. The focus of this module is not a particular disease, but an approach that can address a variety of chronic conditions. “Health coaching is a team-based approach that helps patients gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to become active participants in their care,” explains the module.Among the eight downloadable tools are a coaching workflow chart and patient-coach dialogue tips.
Several modules have been developed from the generous grant funding of the federal Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative (TCPI), an effort designed to help clinicians achieve large-scale health transformation through TCPI’s Practice Transformation Networks.
The AMA, in collaboration with TCPI, is providing technical assistance and peer-level support by way of STEPS Forward resources to enrolled practices. The AMA is also engaging the national physician community in health care transformation through network projects, change packages, success stories and training modules.
Other highlighted CME collections cover topics such as:
