CME information

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF) and the Neurocritical Care Society. UCSF is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF) designates this enduring material for a maximum of 15AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.  (Participants of the 2012 NCS meeting in Denver, CO claim CME credits for this activity from the meeting registration; participants who train online subsequent to that meeting can claim up to 15 AMA PRA category 1 credits.)

Nurses: For the purpose of recertification, the American Nurses Credentialing Center accepts AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ issued by organizations accredited by the ACCME.

Pharmacy: The California Board of Pharmacy accepts as continuing professional education those courses that meet the standard of relevance to pharmacy practice and have been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credits.™

Required Exam Questions: CME credit may be requested upon successful completion all course post-tests and submission of a course evaluation.

Cultural and Linguistic Competency: This CME activity meets the requirements under California Assembly Bill 1195, continuing education and cultural and linguistic competency.

Academic Rigor: This UCSF CME educational activity was planned and developed to uphold academic standards, to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor; adhere to requirements to protect health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA); and, include a mechanism to inform learners when unapproved or unlabeled uses of therapeutic products or agents are discussed or referenced. This activity has been reviewed and approved by members of the UCSF CME Governing Board in accordance with UCSF CME accreditation policies.

Media: Electronic

Privacy and Confidentiality Policy:

About the Course:

Emergency Neurological Life Support (ENLS) is a series of protocols, generated by experienced neurocritical care and emergency physicians that describe key steps when managing a patient within the first hours of a neurological emergency. The protocols are designed to help standardize these important early steps for several reasons: (1) patients will likely experience better outcomes, (2) they provide the essential elements to communicate to receiving physicians a patient's diagnosis and emergency treatment, (3) this approach forms the foundation for eventual consensus on neurological emergency decisions, and (4) this consensus can inform researchers about the important clinical questions that need resolution to enhance patient care.

ENLS is the product of combined efforts of many people. Wade Smith and Scott Weingart co-chair the process of ENLS topic selection, co-director selection, website creation, ENLS Protocol site design, and content editing and development. The ENLS co-chairs of the 13 ENLS topics were charged to develop the original ENLS protocols, and author manuscriipts on the topic for the Neurocritical Care journal supplement. All faculty, along with any relevant financial disclosures are listed below. Examination questions were authored by a team of physicians and nurses (see below).

About the Co-Chairs:

Wade S. Smith, MD, PhD
Neurologist, Neurointensivist
Wade is a co-founder of the Neurocritical Care Society, a member of the NCS board of Directors, and a practicing neurointensivist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is Daryl R. Gress Professor of Neurocritical Care and Stroke at the University of California, San Francisco and medical director of the NeuroICU. He is founding member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educator, teaches at all medical school and postgraduate levels, and focuses his research on acute stroke intervention.

Scott Weingart, MD, RDMS
Emergency Physician Intensivist
Scott is director of the Division of Emergency Critical Care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Elmhurst Hospital Center. He hosts a biweekly podcast on emergency critical care with over 100,000 monthly downloads. Dr Weingart, along with Dr. Smith, was asked to direct the creation of the NCS ENLS project in January, 2010.

The following table lists all ENLS protocol co-chairs.  No person has disclosed a conflict of interest unless indicated by superscript.  All conflicts are explained at the bottom of this table.

Disclosure of conflict of interests:

1- Jan Medical Inc, provided research support; Ornim, Inc: stock and stock options for SAB chair

2- Reach Health, Inc. Owns stock as cofounder

3- Novo Nordisk, Inc: provided drug in kind for NINDS sponsored research

4- Ornim, Inc: stock and stock options for SAB role

5- Integra, provided research support, consultant fees; Codman, owns stock and received consultant fees, product development; Neurologica, provided research support; Edge Therapeutics, consultant fees, SAB; Cerebrotech, consultant fees, SAB

Examination Questions:

The following nurses and physicians authored all of the examination questions for ENLS. This effort was led by Sarah Livesay and Mary Kay Bader. Completion of training in each protocol is performed by answered randomly selected questions from this extensive question bank. Each question was taken from material in the original manuscripts that can be downloaded in each topic module.

Disclosure of conflict of interests:

1- Genentech, received honoraria for Speaker's Bureau; Net Smart Program, received research support as PI

2- BARD/Medivance, received honorarium for education/speaker's bureau; Moberg Medical, received honorarium for education presentation.