Sharing a CME Activity: Name Who Owns the Handoffs

Before two accredited providers divide the work on a CME activity, name the provider responsible for compliance and decide how it will receive and review the other team's work. A task list becomes useful when each handoff has a recipient, an expected deliverable, and a way to resolve missing information.

An October 19 question from AOE Consulting puts the practical issue plainly: when producing an activity with another accredited provider, who manages which tasks? It is a useful planning prompt for CME operations teams, rather than evidence of how often collaborations go wrong.

Settle the accreditation arrangement first

Under ACCME's accreditation statement policy, when two or more accredited providers collaborate on a CME activity, one takes responsibility for compliance. The activity uses the directly provided statement naming that provider. ACCME does not prescribe a particular way to acknowledge the other accredited providers' involvement.

That arrangement differs from ACCME joint providership, which involves accredited and nonaccredited organizations. Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education is another distinct organizational arrangement. Our earlier article on planning for Joint Accreditation examines the team-learning purpose behind that decision. Here the question is narrower: how two accredited providers organize one activity under ACCME's policy.

Confirm the applicable accreditation and credit requirements before borrowing another organization's template. The operating example below concerns two ACCME-accredited providers; it does not supply statement wording or reporting rules for every profession or accreditor.

Give the recipient something it can review

Imagine a hypothetical webinar. Provider A takes responsibility for compliance. Provider B recruits faculty and collects planning materials. A hosts registration and credit claiming; B drafts the evaluation. These are proposed assignments, not a required division of labor.

“B collects disclosures” leaves several questions unanswered. Who at A receives them? When must they arrive? Who reviews relevant relationships and confirms that the necessary steps are complete before the activity? What happens if a faculty member changes?

A useful working note could read:

B's faculty coordinator sends the agreed planning and disclosure materials to A's education lead by the agreed review date. A's lead reviews the package, records outstanding items, and confirms when it is ready to proceed. A faculty or content change returns to that lead for review before release.

The dates and review steps should match the activity and the provider's applicable requirements. The note makes an operational dependency visible; it is not an ACCME-mandated form.

Use the same approach for learner records. Before launch, the registration owner and the responsible provider's records lead should agree what information will be transferred, how it will be protected, and who will reconcile it. Test the transfer with invented records. Can the recipient distinguish registration, participation, and a credit claim? Can it identify a duplicate or an incomplete record without guessing?

A successful test shows that this handoff works under the tested conditions. It does not establish the activity's overall compliance or its educational effectiveness.

Rehearse one exception before launch

Choose an ordinary disruption: a replacement speaker, a corrected attendance record, or an evaluation revised after approval. Ask both teams to walk through who receives the change, who decides what follows, and where the final version is retained.

For the webinar, suppose B replaces a speaker after A has reviewed the materials. B's coordinator routes the replacement through A's agreed review process. The production owner uses the approved version and confirms that the learner-facing materials reflect it. If the review cannot be completed in time, the responsible lead makes and records the decision about that session before it proceeds.

After the activity, close the loop with a short reconciliation: what was delivered, what remains unresolved, who owns each correction, and whether the responsible provider has the records it needs. Keep the evidence of acceptance beside the final files.

The planning meeting can end with one concrete check: each team should be able to name both the person doing its next task and the person who will accept the result. That gives shared work a usable route back to the provider responsible for the activity.