Nemours Children’s is one of the largest integrated pediatric health systems in the country. Everything we do — our medical care, research, education, and prevention and advocacy efforts — is focused on taking pediatric care well beyond medicine. Whether your work is in clinical care, research, healthcare administration, executive leadership, or other areas of healthcare, the accredited continuing education that we provide is designed to address learning gaps relevant to your practice.

Our CE Mission Statement

“Nemours Children’s Health will improve the competence and performance of the clinical care team by providing evidence-based interprofessional continuing education activities with content that supports the healthcare team in developing strategies to create the healthiest generations of children.”

Our CE Accreditation

Nemours Children’s Health is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware is approved as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Nemours Children’s Hospital Florida is accredited by the Florida Board of Nursing as an approved provider of nursing continuing education.

Nemours Content Validity Guidelines

Nemours complies with the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education which have been adopted by multiple accrediting bodies representing multiple health professions including the Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education™, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Anyone in control of Nemours accredited content, including planners and faculty, have a shared responsibility with Nemours Continuing Education staff to uphold these standards. Activity planners and faculty must comply with Nemours Continuing Education procedures, requests from Nemours Continuing Education staff, and the guidelines listed below to ensure content is valid.

  1. Evidence-Based Recommendations: At Nemours, all recommendations for patient care in our continuing education programs are accurate, balanced, and scientifically justified. We ensure a fair and balanced view of diagnostic and therapeutic options is presented. This is achieved through rigorous review of the latest research and consensus guidelines, and by inviting faculty who are identified as subject matter experts in the field. Subject matter experts impact content validity by providing clinical relevance, valuable insights, and foster a deeper understanding of the presented content. Expert faculty also ensure that new and evolving topics can be discussed in continuing education without advocating or promoting practices that are not adequately based on current science.
  2. Adherence to Scientific Standards: All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in our education to support or justify a patient care recommendation conforms to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. We ensure this by only referencing studies published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals and by providing training to our educators on how to appraise research critically.
  3. Exploration of New and Evolving Topics: Our continuing education is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics. These areas are clearly identified within the program and individual presentations. We facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting practices that are not, or not yet adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning. This is achieved by fostering an environment of open discussion and critical thinking, and by clearly labeling unproven methods as experimental or theoretical.
  4. Avoidance of Unscientific Approaches: Nemours does not advocate for unscientific approaches to diagnosis or therapy. We do not promote recommendations, treatments, or manners of practicing healthcare that are determined to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits or are known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients. This is ensured through a strict review process for all educational content and a commitment to uphold the highest standards of medical ethics.

If you have any questions, please contact a Continuing Education staff member.

Policy on Independence and Integrity

Purpose
Nemours complies with the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education which have been adopted by multiple accrediting bodies representing multiple health professions including the Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education™, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Anyone in control of Nemours accredited content, including planners and faculty, have a shared responsibility with Nemours Continuing Education staff to uphold these standards. Activity planners and faculty must comply with Nemours Continuing Education policies and procedures, requests from Nemours Continuing Education staff, and the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Education.

The Nemours’ Policy on Independence applies to all accredited activities regardless of whether or not the activity receives any commercial support. An ineligible company can exert control on an activity in many ways including having an employee of an ineligible company involved in the development and delivery of content. The independence of an activity can also be threatened if ineligible companies providing commercial support of an activity attempt to control the content. Nemours supports the accredited continuing education community in its commitment to providing independent, ethical and scientifically valid education.

Nemours supports these national standards that are designed to:

  • “Ensure that accredited continuing education serves the needs of patients and the public.
  • Present learners with only accurate, balanced, scientifically justified recommendations.
  • Assure healthcare professionals and teams that they can trust accredited continuing education to help them deliver safe, effective, cost-effective, compassionate care that is based on best practice and evidence.
  • Create a clear, unbridgeable separation between accredited continuing education and marketing and sales.” (1)

Policy
There are five standards included in the Standards for Integrity and Independence released in 2020 and include:

Nemours operationalizes and enforces these standards through its:

  • Continuing Education staff that have received nationally recognized training on implementation of the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education
  • Clinical activity directors and activity planning committees that plan content that is accurate, balanced and scientifically justified content relevant to the healthcare team
  • Nemours Content Validity Guidelines
  • Online activity application which guides activity planners to plan activity that is relevant, independent, appropriate, interactive and focused on producing the healthiest generations of children
  • Activity monitoring by Continuing Education staff and program directors
  • Oversight of activity budgets by Continuing Education and Nemours Accounting staff
  • Management of commercial support and ancillary activities performed exclusively by Nemours Continuing Education staff
  • Nemours Policy on Ancillary Activities and Ineligible Organizations Representatives Agreement
  • Financial disclosure forms and tools managed by Continuing Education staff and activity directors to collect information and mitigate relevant financial relationships
  • Activity website which allows for participants to view disclosure of all required information including the absence and presence of relevant financial relationships for those in control of content and commercial support received for activities before the activity.

To maintain the independence of Nemours, decisions regarding CE activities must be made free of control of any ineligible company (defined as “those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients”). This includes owners and employees of ineligible companies.

For all accredited activities, all of those in control of content must comply with all Continuing Education guidance, requests, policies and procedures. Failure to comply will result in disqualification from the activity or removal of accreditation.

https://accme.org/accreditation-rules/standards-for-integrity-independence-accredited-ce/preamble