The American Medical Association has revealed an online education portal geared toward doctors and other healthcare professionals.
Dubbed the AMA Ed Hub, the tool enables physicians to earn CME credits and find other educational information. It includes materials on a variety of topics such as hypertension, oncology, professional well-being, patient care, ethics, health disparities and lifestyle behaviors, among other issues.
“Physicians are committed to lifelong learning to continually improve patient care,” said AMA president Barbara McAneny in a statement. “We also know that physicians are time pressed, so we want to make learning and the process of obtaining credits for that learning as effective and as streamlined as possible.”
The material on the Ed Hub comes from sources such as the JAMA Network’s JN Learning and AMA STEPs Forward. The AMA has also partnered with the American College of Radiology to offer educational content on the platform. Users can now access a selection of free ACR content on the Ed Hub.
“The ACR is proud to share a selected portion of our free educational opportunities with physicians of all specialties through the AMA Ed Hub,” said ACR CEO William Thorwarth in a news release. “These include educational offerings and trainings regarding physician leadership, data science, research and clinical practice management.”
Going forward, the AMA intends to partner with other organizations to offer more educational content on the platform.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
So far this year, the American Medical Association has revealed partnerships with a few other organizations.
In April, it teamed up with UnitedHealthcare on an initiative aimed at standardizing how information regarding social and environmental factors is collected, processed and integrated. Together, they are supporting the creation of almost 24 new ICD-10 codes related to social determinants of health. They’re bringing together medical data with self-reported SDOH information, and the ICD-10 codes trigger referrals to services that connect patients to resources in their communities.
Additionally, the AMA unveiled a collaboration with PatientPoint, a patient and physician engagement business, in March. The goal of their alliance is to help doctors and patients prevent the onset of two chronic diseases. PatientPoint will deliver AMA-developed educational material to patients and physicians to help them identify the risks for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and encourage them to take action.
Photo: RakicN, Getty Images
