There are many synergies and resources between the Alliance for Continuing
Education in the Health Professions (ACEhp) and the American Medical Writers
Association (AMWA), because medical educators and medical writers are all
communicators ... which explains why so many of us are members of both. In
today's ACEhp webinar (see www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=367), Jann Balmer
replied to a question asking about the role of medical writers in publishing
educational outcomes in the quality improvement reporting tool, SQUIRE (as
customized by ACEhp), saying that outcomes manuscripts can be enhanced by
medical writers and editors because QIE project managers may not be good
writers. My colleague, Donald Harting, and I have been discussing potential
organizational synergies between AMWA and ACEhp in this regard for over a year.
This is an opportune moment for our memberships to work together: AMWA
celebrated 75 years with last week's Annual Conference, which started the very
day on which ACEhp launched its custom SQUIRE reporting tool for clinical
educational research at the annual Alliance Quality Symposium. This begs the
question: What role will professional medical writers and communicators in AMWA
play in publishing standardized, SQUIRE-compliant educational outcomes research
in the Alliance for CE in the Health Professions custom tool?
Conversation-starter: ACEhp identified a top goal of 2015's Phase II of the
Quality Improvement Education (QIE) Initiative as the "Assessment of
SQUIRE to generate Case Studies that demonstrate successful integration of
Education into QI." Professionals with capabilities in medical education
and writing will ideally combine their skills in writing these case studies.
Wouldn't you like to author a study that is eligible for later meta-analyses
because the study was SQUIRE-compliant?
Extension: There is an inaugural meeting on writing research in the SQUIRE
tool at Dartmouth this November 2015. MedBiquitous members, as experts in
standardization in medical education technology and reporting, what can you
contribute to this conversation? Members of the American Educational Research
Association LinkedIn group, what are your thoughts for connecting health
education research reporting to more global research agendas?
I am promoting the SQUIRE tool because of my roles as Co-Leader of the
ACEhp QIE Initiative's Building Block on "Nomenclature and Its
Adoption" and Research Track faculty. In these roles, I see the needs for
developing consistent wording and reporting standards for medical education
research. After all, how will we report our achievements and deliberate our
challenges in developing and researching CE in the Health Professions if we do
not have consistent language to use in the SQUIRE reporting tool? Let's not
delay a start in COMMUNICATING among health communicators. Join the discussion!
I believe that this is a great opportunity for all health educators, education
researchers, and writers to collaborate!
For additional information on these organizations, topics, and events,
check out these links (some may have membership firewalls):
- SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) inaugural
conference: squire-statement.org/news_events/squire_international_writing_conference/
- ACEhp Quality Symposium: www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=20 (see also
the August 2015 issue of the Almanac: www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=52, p.
15)
- ACEhp Foundation QIE Initiative: www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=43
- ACEhp Foundation QIE Initiative's custom SQUIRE tool:
---See Slides 17 - 19 of
www.acehp.org/p/do/sd/sid=864&fid=1212&req=direct
---See Webinars at www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=367
- AMWA 75th Anniversary: www.amwa.org/amwa_anniversary
- MedBiquitous: http://www.medbiq.org/ and new Performance Standard:
www.medbiq.org/node/1001
Connect with me! SHBinford@FullCircleClinicalEducation.com or
www.linkedin.com/company/full-circle-clinical-education-inc
