The ACCME’s 2025 Data Report, Sustaining Trust and Expanding Reach, gave CME providers a clear picture of where accredited continuing medical education stands today. What it did not give them was a playbook for what to do next.
Our previous coverage, What the Latest ACCME Data Report Means for CME Providers, summarized the findings. This piece takes the next step: what CME providers should actually do with them.
What the data really shows
The 2025 report documented record-high engagement across the accredited CME system. Providers delivered 242,511 educational activities and generated 57.5 million learner interactions, with total reported income reaching approximately $3.85 billion. Registration fees accounted for 54% of that total, reflecting active demand from learners and institutions rather than compliance-driven minimums.
Underneath those top-line numbers, a few patterns stand out. On-demand learning is doing disproportionate work: enduring materials accounted for 44% of all activities but drove 65% of all learner interactions. Jointly accredited providers grew from 187 to 206, a 10.2% increase, and though they represent just 14% of accredited providers, they accounted for 52% of all activities and 61% of total learner interactions. And outcomes measurement remains uneven, with most activities measuring knowledge and competence but far fewer measuring performance, patient outcomes, or population-level impact.
Each of these findings translates into a specific strategic priority for CME leaders planning the next 12 to 18 months.
Priority 1: Build out your enduring materials library
If enduring materials are driving 65% of learner interactions while accounting for less than half of activities, learners are voting with their attendance. On-demand access is what they choose when it is available, and providers who can supply high-quality enduring content are reaching more people per hour of production effort.
For CME providers, this means:
- Evaluate the ratio of live to enduring content in your current portfolio and identify sessions that could be converted into enduring materials.
- Build a workflow that captures every live activity as a candidate for on-demand publication, with editing, tagging, and metadata standards defined upfront.
- Review your enduring content library on a regular cadence for accuracy, relevance, and continued clinical validity. Enduring does not mean static; it means available.
There is a financial case for this too. Enduring content generates learner engagement and revenue long after production is complete, and it lets your team scale the reach of your best content without repeatedly producing new activities.
For a deeper look at what a CME content strategy needs to include in 2026, Best CME Platforms for Enterprise Healthcare Organizations covers what your platform needs to support at scale.
Priority 2: Rethink jointly accredited programming
Jointly accredited programs are growing faster than the broader CME system, and they are driving a disproportionate share of learner engagement. That signal reflects a broader shift in healthcare toward team-based care, where physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other clinicians need shared educational experiences more than they used to.
For CME providers, that means:
- If your organization is not already jointly accredited, evaluate whether it should be. The growth trajectory of joint accreditation suggests learners are seeking programs that serve full care teams.
- If you are jointly accredited, examine whether your programming actually reflects that. Content built for a single specialty does not fully use the accreditation’s potential.
- Consider partnerships. Some of the strongest jointly accredited programs come from collaborations between organizations that each bring a specific specialty depth.
Interprofessional education is not a niche category anymore. It is one of the fastest-growing segments of accredited CME, and the providers who lean into it are capturing outsized share of learner engagement.
Priority 3: Close the outcomes measurement gap
The 2025 data report showed most activities measuring learner competence (95%) and knowledge (74%), with far fewer measuring performance (39%), patient health outcomes (12%), or community and population health (7%).
That gap is both an accreditation risk and a missed opportunity. Accreditors have shifted their focus toward outcomes that go beyond knowledge acquisition. And healthcare systems, payers, and grant funders are asking harder questions about whether CME actually changes clinical practice.
Practical steps for CME providers:
- Identify a subset of your programs where performance or outcomes data is realistically measurable, and start there.
- Partner with clinical operations, quality improvement, or population health teams inside your organization to access data you may not currently have.
- Build outcomes measurement into your program design from the start, not as a retrospective afterthought.
For an overview of what CME compliance and reporting need to look like today, CME Compliance Tracking: Guide and Tools covers the workflow side of this in detail.
Priority 4: Make reporting infrastructure a strategic advantage
The reporting demands on CME providers keep growing. ACCME PARS submissions, joint accreditation reporting, MOC credit tracking, faculty disclosure management, and state-level CE requirements all sit on top of the day-to-day work of running programs.
The providers who handle this well are the ones treating reporting infrastructure as a strategic investment rather than a compliance cost. When your reporting is accurate, timely, and reliable, your team spends less time reconciling data and more time on programming quality. Faculty and learners get a better experience. And accreditation reviews go smoother.
The 2025 report’s emphasis on trust is not accidental. Providers who cannot demonstrate reliable reporting will face growing pressure from both accreditors and the healthcare systems they serve.
What CME providers need in their technology stack
The four priorities above translate directly into technology requirements. A CME management system that supports these strategies needs to:
- Handle enduring content publication, tagging, and lifecycle management at scale
- Support jointly accredited programs and the multi-credit-type reporting they require
- Capture outcomes data alongside credit tracking, not in a separate system
- Manage ACCME PARS, JA PARS, MOC, and other accreditation reporting in one workflow
- Handle faculty disclosure management and program approval workflows without manual reconciliation
The providers who invest in the right infrastructure now will be positioned to respond to the next data report from a position of strength. The ones running on legacy systems or manual processes will find each subsequent reporting cycle harder than the last.
For a full picture of what CME programs need in 2026, Continuing Education Trends Shaping 2026 covers where the field is heading across both healthcare and association CE.
The Bottom Line
The 2025 ACCME Data Report gives CME providers more than a snapshot of where the field stands. It points to where continuing medical education is heading, and where CME providers need to invest to grow with it.
Enduring materials, interprofessional education, outcomes measurement, and reliable reporting infrastructure are not four separate priorities. They are four sides of the same strategic shift: continuing medical education is becoming a bigger, more sophisticated, and more accountable enterprise, and the providers who plan for that will lead the next phase of it.
To see how EthosCE supports growing CME programs, request a demo or explore more coverage on the Cadmium blog.
