EORNA ACE structure

EORNA ACE was founded in 2008 as a separate entity from EORNA even though the EORNA ACE Executive Committee was appointed by the EORNA Executive Board of Officers. EORNA ACE management would remain the same:

  • The governing body is the EORNA ACE Executive Committee, which is comprised of representatives from EORNA member countries.
  • The EORNA ACE Executive Committee may consult an Advisory Council which provides recommendations with regard to the management of European accreditation. This body is made up of representatives from:

o National professional CME authorities, including national CME Accrediting bodies;
o EORNA,
o Professional specialist organisations and societies.
This Advisory Council can provide a valuable exchange of expert-knowledge between the various partners involved in accreditation at European level. EORNA may convene a meeting of this advisory council in order to fulfil its commitment to the further evolution of EORNA ACE procedures.

From the start, national professional regulatory bodies have encouraged and supported this specialty-wide structure, namely EORNA ACE, which makes CME / CPD credits throughout Europe exchangeable. The only condition was that these bodies would remain in charge of events in their own country and would have a major input in the process of EORNA ACE. Moreover, it is expected that within a few years mandatory recertification will apply in several countries. CME / CPD credits would then become an even more important instrument for such assessments.

Practical operation

EORNA ACE will request its mandate from many national regulatory bodies following agreed policies:
a) National authorities are not threatened. EORNA ACE does not become a supranational body, but is a link and clearing-house between national regulatory bodies.
b) If the country where the activity takes place has a national regulatory body that grants accreditation then the final decision concerning accreditation of each activity remains the decision of that national regulatory body.
c) Quality assurance and determination of the number of credits of separate CME / CPD activities is decentralised, EORNA ACE relying upon the expertise of professional bodies in each specialty such as the EORNA Board and members.
d) There will be no accreditation of commercially biased activities.
e) Internet and distance-learning activities are being developed with each activity being judged separately. There is no proposal for providers to be accredited for series of activities stretching over months or years.
f) Administrative expenses of EORNA ACE are borne by the providers of activities applying for European accreditation. The recognition of EORNA ACE credits (ECMEC’s) by national authorities is within the above framework. EORNA ACE also strictly complies and operates according to this procedure:
The accreditation process in Europe may involve two partners, on the one hand the National Accreditation Authority and on the other hand the EORNA ACE Executive Committee.
The responsible National Authorities are determined according to the place where the meeting is organized and the membership of the EORNA ACE Executive Committee is determined on the basis of the specialty that is most involved or to the target audience of the event.

The process in practice

The organizer of an event sends the application form with all the relevant and required documents to the EORNA ACE either by completion of the web-based request form (preferable) or in hard copy.
The Application form will be distributed immediately to applicable partners :
a) The relevant National Accreditation Authority if there is one.
b) The EORNA ACE assesses the scientific value of the CME / CPD activity.
This evaluation strictly follows EORNA ACE Quality criteria defined.
Both partners are requested to give, in a well determined time scale, an approval or a refusal for accreditation plus the suggested number of credits to be applied by EORNA ACE.
As the different National Accreditation Authorities apply different credit systems, the European CME Credits (“ECMEC”) were introduced in order to harmonise the number of credits on the following basis:

  • 1 ECMEC per hour;
  • 3 ECMEC for half-day; and
  • 6 ECMEC for a full-day event.

National authorities can then convert these credits into national units, following their own National rules.
When EORNA ACE and applicable partners agree on an approval, the organiser will receive a letter confirming the approval of European Accreditation by EORNA ACE.
This letter contains two sections:

  • The first stating the approval and precisely which partners have been involved in the decision.
  • The second section gives the number of ECMEC’s granted to the event (and eventually the number of National Credits granted following the rules of the National Accreditation Authority of the country where the event takes place).

Evaluation of events.

It is very difficult (if not impossible) to fully evaluate an event before it is held based on documents that are provided by the organizer. Therefore it is extremely important to ensure that organizers have an evaluation of the event by the participants. This evaluation can be quite simple but with essential questions such as:
– was the event well organized.
– quality of the event (subject material and presentation).
– did the attendee learn something from the event.
– will what I learned from the event change my practice.
– was any bias perceived.

The evaluation can be graded from “fully agree” to “fully disagree” in five steps for instance.
The principal aim of this evaluation is to help in the evaluation of any further meeting of the same kind organized by the same people. EORNA ACE is mostly involved in the evaluation of many international events that are recurring events so this will help in the process.

Which added value?

As shown, the added value of EORNA ACE lies in its central link, encompassing all specialties, between the professional societies, the CME / CPD providers and the national regulatory bodies. Any change to this procedure would need the consensus of national regulatory bodies.
From the point of view of the organizers of events, the added value sits in the international dimension that would be given to an event. More participants from other countries and also from the USA would be interested in participating in their meetings.

The long term benefit is the link with the national regulatory bodies. These bodies are very keen to preserve their national authority in the awarding of credits to the nurses in their own countries.
The EORNA ACE offers an institution in which they participate and have authority. In this way the profession facilitates exchange of CME / CPD credits in Europe in a similar way as postgraduate diplomas are mutually recognised according to European law.

It has to be recognised that it is the National Accreditation Authorities, together with the National Licensing Authorities, that ultimately give nurses their license to practise and EORNA, through EORNA ACE, intends to assist in this process. The ultimate goal is to develop a system that makes life easier for our colleagues and to provide them with recognised quality CME / CPD with the guarantee that they can use their CME / CPD credits to meet national requirements.