AANS Joint Sponsorship Guidelines
Professional Practice Gap(s)
A professional practice gap is the difference between actual and ideal performance and/or patient outcomes. When there is a gap between what the professional is doing or accomplishing compared to what is "achievable on the basis of current professional knowledge," there is a professional practice gap.
Here are some questions to ask in educational planning committee meetings when determining to create a CME activity and address professional practice gaps:
- What are the patient cases that keep you up at night?
- What do you think your colleagues have the most trouble with?
- What type of patient cases do you refer the most?
- If you are a specialty group, what types of cases are referred to you that you don’t think received the right work up?
- What new science or technology is available for the target audience?
EXAMPLES of a professional practice gap:
Example 1
The practice gap is the difference in what neurosurgical treatments are being done for patients with glioblastomas and other tumors and what new advances and techniques can be applied to improve neurosurgeons competence skills and patient care of brain tumors.
Example 2
CNS tumors constitute 15% to 35% of brain tumors. There is such a large variety of lesions which results in difficulty determining the long-term treatment for CNS tumors.
Example 3
The procedure being discussed is a brand new or relatively new procedure.
NOTE: Providing a list of topics that you would like presented at your next activity is not a description of professional practice gaps. You must indicate how these topics relate to a problem in your practice or the neurosurgery field or describe what problems or issues in your practice / field for which you need a CME activity to help narrow the practice gap. Your activity evaluations as well as the annual AANS education survey help AANS to identify what practice gaps have narrowed.