What if my organization has no accreditation statuses and would like to apply for Joint Accreditation?
A non-accredited organization is still eligible to apply. If the organization is awarded Joint Accreditation, the maximum term that could be awarded is a two (2) year term.
Are there any examples from other successful Joint Accreditation providers we could look at for reference?
The Joint Accreditation program does not post examples of interprofessional education activities or responses to Joint Accreditation criteria, however you may contact a current jointly accredited provider directly to see if they are willing to share best practices. A list of current jointly accredited providers is listed on our website at: http://www.jointaccreditation.org/accredited-providers
If there is an event where only one profession is represented, what criteria should we follow?
Jointly accredited providers use the Joint Accreditation criteria regardless of whether they are planning educational activities for a single profession or planning an interprofessional education activity. If your organization is awarded Joint Accreditation, jointly accredited providers are certainly able to offer single profession CE activities; the thirteen Joint Accreditation set of criteria would still be followed to plan those single professional activities, but they do not need to be planned by the interprofessional healthcare team.
How do I count the 25%?
At least 25% of all educational activities developed by the organization during the past 18 months are categorized as "interprofessional", and can demonstrate an integrated planning process that includes a healthcare team of two or more professions who are reflective of the interprofessional target audience the activity is designed to address. The formula is as follows: Count the number of activities planned within the past 18 months that are classified as interprofessional using the definition provided within the Joint Accreditation framework. Divide by the total number of activities planned within the past 18 months. Multiply by 100.
What are the term lengths awarded for Joint Accreditation?
The term lengths are usually two, four, or six years, depending on the provider's status. For more information, please see the Term of Accreditation section in the Joint Accreditation Framework.
How should our interprofessional committee be structured?
There is no prescribed requirement or structure for your interprofessional CE planning committee. Joint Accreditation expects that activities will be planned by a team that is representative of the target audience. So, for example, if your activity was targeted at physicians and nurses, planning must include individuals from both professions.
If a jointly accredited provider is working with a non-accredited provider, do we still follow the 12 criteria for Joint Accreditation?
Yes, the same criteria still apply.
What is the definition of an interprofessional activity?
An interprofessional activity is a CE activity that incorporates the educational needs that underlie the practice gaps of the healthcare team and their members. Interprofessional activities must be designed to change the skills/strategy, or performance, of the healthcare team or patient outcomes as described in an organization's mission statement. Interprofessional activities also reflect the healthcare team's current or potential scope of practice. For an official definition, please view our website: http://www.jointaccreditation.org/ce-planning-implementation. The planning process for education activities classified as "interprofessional" must demonstrate:
• An integrated planning process that includes health care professionals from two or more professions.
• An integrated planning process that includes health care professionals who are reflective of the target audience members the activity is designed to address.
• The intent to achieve outcome(s) that reflect a change in skills, strategy, or performance of the health care team and/or patient outcomes.
• Reflection of one or more of the interprofessional competencies to include: values/ethics, roles/responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and/or teams/teamwork.
How should I determine the cycle to apply in? Is there such a thing as a "good time"?
Organizations are strongly encouraged to contact staff at info@jointaccreditation.org to evaluate readiness to apply. Staff will help organizations evaluate readiness and determine an appropriate application cycle. Organizations currently accredited by ACCME, ACPE, and/or ANCC should be prepared to provide current accreditation terms so staff can help assess the need for extensions if necessary.
What are the fees?
The Joint Accreditation fees are structured to correspond with certain milestones throughout the application process. If an application is accepted at a specific milestone, the corresponding fee will apply and the application moves forward. The fees associated with Joint Accreditation are detailed here.
Now that our organization is jointly accredited, will we still have to submit annual reports to each of the accreditors?
All activity data is reported into a centralized, online database – JA-PARS. This fulfills the annual activity reporting required by the joint accreditors. If you choose to offer activities that include optometrists, you will also be required to submit activity data and a brief report to COPE. For more information about the COPE report, please contact: arbo@arbo.org
How do I log in to JA-PARS?
You may access JA-PARS via the new JA-PARS webpage, or via the following link: https://pars.accme.org/. Specific instructions for logging into JA-PARS can be found here.
By what date must I complete my year-end reporting requirements for Joint Accreditation?
To meet your year-end reporting responsibility, we ask that you complete the following steps by March 31, 2022:
Accept the terms for the Joint Accreditation policy agreement, located on the dashboard in JA-PARS. All jointly accredited providers are asked to accept the policy agreement each year and at the time of reaccreditation. Enter all activities that occurred in 2021 and close any that are no longer being offered. For any enduring materials that are continuing into 2022, update the total learner counts as of December 31, 2021 (keep it open until the end date). Complete and submit your program summary, located on the dashboard in JA-PARS. Review and update your contact information. You can do this by clicking “Back to Accreditation Management” in the top right of the JA-PARS dashboard.The process for year-end reporting has been simplified with the removal of the field for reporting year. We encourage you to enter activities as you plan them and close them when they end.
Are we only entering IPCE activities into JA-PARS or all activities we provide?
Jointly accredited providers should enter all accredited activities being offered into JA-PARS, whether single profession or interprofessional.
Is there a way to add user accounts in JA-PARS?
Yes, providers can add user accounts to JA-PARS. To add a user to JA-PARS, login to the system and click on “Profile”, then “Contacts”. Click on the “New” button in the top right portion of the Contacts screen and complete all required fields to add a new user to your organization’s account. If you have questions about how to add accounts, please send an email to info@accme.org.
Can I register an activity for MOC credit (as well as single profession and IPCE credit) and report physician learner completion data into ACCME via JA-PARS?
Yes. Activities can be registered for MOC credit and physicians reported as having completed the activity via JA-PARS. This tutorial provides an overview of manually adding an activity registered for MOC or REMS. Please note, although the document focuses on PARS, you'll see the same functionality and features in JA-PARS. For more information about CME in support of MOC, please visit this webpage.
How do I indicate if an activity is designed for a single profession (but might have other professions attend) or is interprofessional?
JA-PARS allows you to indicate that you had multiple professions as your target audience or in attendance (participating) – even if the activity is not interprofessional. You are able to select the types of credit you are offering and report your learners by health professions. If the activity is interprofessional, please indicate that you are offering IPCE credit. This tutorial is designed to guide accredited providers through the process of entering their CE activities into JA-PARS. Learn more on our new JA-PARS webpage.
Do I report learners by their profession or as “other learners” if the activity is designed for a single profession?
Please report learners by profession regardless if the activity is designed for a single profession or is interprofessional. Only report learners as “other learners” if they are professions that are not individually called out as part of Joint Accreditation, e.g., nurses, optometrists, pharmacists, physician assistants, physicians, psychologists, social workers, dietitians, and athletic trainers.
Should I only report learners that claimed credit?
No. Providers should report all learners that completed at least a portion of the activity, and whose completion can be verified in some manner. For example, providers should not include learners that registered for an activity, but did not attend, but should include learners that completed an activity but declined to claim credit.
When reporting pharmacy learners to CPE monitor, providers should only report those learners that met the requirements to earn pharmacy credit.
How do I report Regularly Scheduled Series activities?
For example: Grand Rounds is planned for the entire year as one series for nurses, pharmacists, and physicians. They meet weekly during the year for one hour each week. In JA-PARS, the series should be entered as one activity with 1 pharmacy credit, 52 AMA PRA Category 1 credits, 52 Nursing credits, and 52 different live dates that correspond to each session. Also, if 20 nurses and 10 physicians participated in each session, the nursing learners would be 1,040 (20 learners/session x 52 sessions) and physician learners would be 520 for that single activity.
Do I need to add multiple live dates for an activity that spans multiple days? For example, a course that takes place on Friday and Saturday.
For the activity start date, the provider would enter the first day of the course; the last day of the course would be entered for the activity end date. If this is a live activity to be considered as a conference and the target audience is pharmacist or pharmacy technicians, providers can enter just the start date for the pharmacy live data field. When credit is uploaded into CPE Monitor, the JA provider may upload partial credit. If the CE activity offers the same content to different audiences on different days/times, then the JA provider would enter the amount of credit for the one session and insert multiple live dates by entering the date and selecting “+” next to the Live Date field. The JA provider would then upload the date of the specific activity date into CPE Monitor.
If only one date of an RSS is going to get pharmacy credit, how would that be reported in JA-PARS?
The provider would enter the corresponding pharmacy credit amount in the pharmacy credit field and then add the live date for pharmacists in the pharmacy live date field.
What is the difference between a Regularly Scheduled Series and a repeated Course?
Regularly scheduled series is a live activity planned as a series with multiple, ongoing sessions, e.g., offered weekly, monthly, or quarterly. It is primarily planned by and presented to the accredited organization’s professional staff. The series is typically offered to the same audience over time with evolving content. Examples include grand rounds, tumor boards, and morbidity and mortality conferences.
A course is a live activity where the learner participates in person. Each instance of a course has a distinct audience.
Do we need to have UAN numbers printed in brochures if pharmacy credit is being offered?
No, this is not a requirement for Joint Accreditation. Joint Accreditation does not include a UAN in the provider accreditation statement and does not require the UAN to be included on marketing/promotional materials. A provider can enter an ACPE activity to JA-PARS after the date.
Are UAN's generated by JA-PARS, and do we still need to enter participants in CPE monitor?
Yes, UANs are generated in JA-PARS when the appropriate content is input. Providers will need to award credit to pharmacy/pharmacy technician learners into CPE Monitor®.
How do I report pharmacists and pharmacy technicians’ data into CPE Monitor via JA-PARS?
All CE activities for all professions must be entered into JA-PARS beginning in 2018. Activities reporting pharmacy credit will be automatically transferred from JA-PARS to CPE Monitor. All pharmacy and pharmacy technician learners who were awarded credit must be submitted to CPE Monitor. Links to ACPE’s CPE Monitor will be available through your activity record in JA-PARS. Click on Update Learners on your activity record. In the pop-up window that appears, click the link to report pharmacy learners to be taken to CPE Monitor. ACPE also have webservices available if your learner management system has that capability. More information about CPE monitor can be found here.
We offer interprofessional education to an audience that include pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Does that mean that we need to report this information within 60 days of each session?
Yes, if you are awarding credit to pharmacists, the credit will need to be uploaded into CPE Monitor® within 60 days of the date of participation.
Can JA providers award partial credit to pharmacists?
Yes. Jointly accredited providers are able to award partial credit to pharmacy learners.
If an activity will be available for multiple years, e.g., an enduring material, do I need to create a new activity record and generate a new UAN in each year that the activity is available?
Enduring activities that are offered over the course of multiple years should be reported only once in JA-PARS. If the activity includes pharmacists or pharmacy technicians, JA-PARS will generate a single UAN for the activity that will be valid for a maximum of 3 years from the activity start date. This UAN will be used to report pharmacists or pharmacy technicians to CPE Monitor during the life of the course. Learner counts for enduring activities should be updated in JA-PARS through 12/31 by the 3/31 Annual Reporting deadline for each year they are active.
Other activity formats that are active in more than one calendar year should be entered once for each 12-month period (doesn’t need to be a calendar year) and closed at the end of that period. If the activity will continue beyond a 12-month period, it should be entered again in PARS. If the activity includes pharmacists or pharmacy technicians, please use the UAN assigned to the activity during that reporting year when reporting pharmacists or pharmacy technicians to CPE Monitor.
What live date should I enter for an enduring material?
Enduring material activities should be reported in JA-PARS once for the duration of the activity. Enduring materials can be entered with a date range up to three years, with the start date as the first date the activity is available to learners, and the end date as the date of expiration. If the activity is reviewed and renewed, the activity will be entered into JA-PARS anew with a start date listed as the date of the most recent review, and the end date as the new expiration date. Live dates only apply to live courses and RSS, and will not appear for enduring materials.
Can we set up automatic reporting to JA-PARS and/or CPE Monitor from our systems?
Yes, JA-PARS and CPE Monitor have web service endpoints available for various purposes. Please review the web service documentation for both systems.
Can I use the same content repeated at different times for different groups of learners to count towards meeting the critical elements and standards in the commendation criteria?
It depends on the criterion.
Frequency: Some of the criteria standards require that providers attest to meeting the criterion in a number or percentage of their activities, depending on the program size. For these criteria, we expect providers to demonstrate the frequency of activities that have met the critical elements. For these criteria, if the same content is repeated for different audiences, at different times or places, those count as separate instances. This measure is used for Joint Accreditation Criteria (JAC) 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, and 23. (For JAC 22, evidence is demonstrated through a number of learners or teams based on program size).
Diversity and breadth: Other criteria standards require that providers demonstrate compliance through a specified number of examples of activities or initiatives. With these examples, we expect providers to demonstrate the diversity and breadth of approaches they used to meet the critical elements. For these criteria, providers need to submit examples that are completely different from each other. Different iterations of the same activity content repeated for different audiences at different times and places, would not count as separate examples. This measure is used for JAC 15, 16, 19, 24, and 25.
How do I delete an activity?
If you need to delete an activity from JA-PARS, you may do so by going to your Activity Summary screen. From there you can check the box next to each activity you want to delete and then choose the Delete Activities option at the bottom of the page. You can also delete activities individually by hovering over the activity card and selecting the Delete option. You will receive a pop-up message asking you to confirm whether you want to delete the selected activities. You can also delete activities using the batch and web service methods.
Note that you cannot delete activities with a status of Closed, or for which you have entered individual learner completion data.
What is the "Internal ID"?
The Internal ID (formerly called Provider Activity ID) is a unique code or identifier that your organization creates. It is used in combination with the data in the fields activity type, and activity date to uniquely identify your activity records. Providers should not use their assigned seven-digit provider ID number as an Internal ID, since this number would be the same for all activities you provide.
The Internal ID field is optional, except in the following cases:
–When your organization offers multiple activities in the same format on the same date
–When entering activities via batch upload or web services
–When the activity offers MOC
What do the different activity statuses mean in JA-PARS?
DRAFT: A draft activity is an activity that is not yet available to learners, or you have not entered enough information in JA-PARS for the activity to be considered active. JA-PARS assigns the draft status. You do not have to set it.
ACTIVE: As long as the end date of the activity has not passed and you have entered all fields, JA-PARS automatically moves the activity to active status. You do not need to set the status as active.
READY TO CLOSE: Once the end date of an activity has passed and you have entered all fields, JA-PARS automatically changes the status to ready to close. You do not need to actively set an activity as ready to close. At this point, you can enter your final total learner counts, provide any final details about commercial support (if applicable), and close your activity.
CLOSED: Once you have completed and updated your total learner counts, you will need to change the status of your activities to closed. JA-PARS does not do this since it cannot determine when your learner counts and other details are final. You will be able to set the status as closed for an individual activity, or you can select all the applicable activities and set them as closed at the same time, or you can use any of the batch or web services methods.
See this guide for details about the fields required for each status.
What is the Joint Accreditation Program and Activity Reporting System (JA-PARS)?
The Joint Accreditation Program and Activity Reporting System (JA-PARS) is a web-based portal designed to streamline and support the collection of program and activity data from accredited interprofessional continuing education (IPCE) providers. Joint Accreditation uses the information collected in JA-PARS to support reviews that are part of the process for reaccreditation and progress report reviews. In addition, Joint Accreditation uses data from JA-PARS to produce reports as a service to Jointly Accredited providers and other stakeholders.
