Continuing Professional Development

Overview
The ACP CPD program has been developed to support its members and fellows in meeting the standards to comply with regulatory requirements within Australia. The program is aimed at members and fellows who are practicing phlebology on a day-to-day basis or who may be in a related field where they also practice phlebology.

The college has developed an online CPD portal which is the hub of all CPD related activity such as information on the program and its requirements, templates and online recording of activities. Access to our online CPD portal is free for fellows, and medical practitioner members.

Our CPD program operates on a three-year cycle, with triennial and annual minimum requirements.

Participants record, monitor and provide evidence of their completed CPD activities conveniently through the online CPD portal, under the categories of performance review and measuring outcomes and education. We have provided a range of templates to assist CPD participants meet their requirements which can be downloaded from the CPD portal.

Aim
The Australasian College of Phlebology (ACP) is committed to ensuring that fellows and CPD participants of the ACP maintain high standards and high levels of professional development through the Continuing Professional Development Program.

The aim of the program is to assist in management of a range of ongoing educational activities, which maintain clinical standards so that Fellows and participants maintain and improve the quality of care they give to patients and promote the highest possible standards of care to the community.

Objectives

• To assist managing in effective and efficient CPD activities
• To demonstrate to the governing bodies the accountability of phlebologists to the community by documentation of participation in CPD activities.
• To ensure the high professional standards of fellows of the Australasian college of phlebology and Australasian phlebology generally by ensuring they meet CPD levels that are acknowledged world standards.
• The program is compulsory for all ACP Fellows providing care in phlebology and its associated interventional procedures.
• Medical Practitioner members (CPD Participants) of the College can opt-in to use the ACP CPD program as their CPD Home.
• The program is diverse, practical, flexible and equitable and contains many areas allowing personal choice of continuing educational areas to satisfy different learning styles and clinical practice in Phlebology

Annual CPD Requirements

Access
If you are a member or fellow of the college you already have access to the CPD portal, simply indicate that you will be utilising the portal as your registered CPD Home and start recording your CPD activity. If you are not currently a member you will need to sign up from the Membership page here https://www.phlebology.com.au/meminfo

CPD Handbook
The CPD handbook provides all information regarding the CPD program including:

• Who can join
• How to access and associated costs
• Structure of the program
• Policies
• Templates to assist meeting requirements
• Breakdown of the activities and points/hours required for each
• Types of evidence meet the evidence criteria

You can download a copy of the Handbook here

CPD Categories and Activities
The following table is included in the CPD Handbook, for further information on each activity refer to the CPD Handbook.

Assessment of Activities
Educational Activities conducted by the ACP are automatically endorsed for CPD hours and no review is required.

Educational activities by other organisations will be assessed by the CPD Committee to ensure that the content of an activity is relevant to the learning needs of phlebologists and the CPD requirements. All activities will need to meet the required educational standards and criteria, and to verify that the teaching methods, learning outcomes, and evaluation tools are educationally sound.

Participants need to ensure:

• the activities are phlebological in nature; or
• the activities are geared toward professional development
• the activities fall within the descriptors associated with the various ACP Categories
• activities that fall within the descriptors of education are of a phlebological nature

Process

1. Participant to provide evidence that the activity meets the above criteria.
2. The application will initially be reviewed by personnel within the CPD administration team to determine completeness and to what degree the criteria are met. The Activity Review Checklist (below) is the template which all activity will be assessed for suitability.
3. After initial assessment by the CPD administration team, activities will be tabled for consideration by the CPD committee with one of the following recommendations:

• approved as the activity meets the criteria
• request for review
• denied as the activity does not meet the criteria

4. If approved the process is finalised. The participant is notified that the activity has been approved.
5. Where evidence is incomplete or does not meet the criteria, the participant will be requested to provide further evidence with recommendations for amendment.
6. The activity is then recorded in the register of CPD approved activities for future reference when approving activities.