In a profession where a physician often pauses in the middle of a shift to check an uncertain question, the question of whether that pause counts toward one's continuing learning has quietly been answered in the United Kingdom. The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians has approved Wolters Kluwer's UpToDate clinical decision support tool for professional development credit, following new guidance that treats up-to-date online medical resources as legitimate learning. The move reflects a broader shift in how medicine understands knowledge itself: no longer only something carried in mem
Federation of UK Royal Colleges Approves UpToDate Decision Support as Category 1 CPD Activity
Credit for the question asked at the bedside
In a profession where a physician often pauses in the middle of a shift to check an uncertain question, the question of whether that pause counts toward one's continuing learning has quietly been answered in the United Kingdom. The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians has approved Wolters Kluwer's UpToDate clinical decision support tool for professional development credit, following new guidance that treats up-to-date online medical resources as legitimate learning. The move reflects a broader shift in how medicine understands knowledge itself: no longer only something carried in memory and earned in lecture halls, but something consulted, verified and renewed at the bedside. Whether this recognition becomes a wider pattern, and whether the tool's claimed effect on patient care can be confirmed independently, remains for the profession to judge.
A physician in the United Kingdom who stops mid-shift to look up a clinical question can now receive professional credit for that pause. The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, a collaboration of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, has approved Wolters Kluwer Health's UpToDate as a continuing professional development activity. Between the three colleges, membership exceeds 50,000 worldwide.
The approval rests on new Federation guidelines that recognize online resources with current medical content, known as e-libraries, as genuine CPD. Members in the scheme can now earn and track external, or category 1, credits while researching questions at the point of care, on desktop or mobile. Adrian Jennings, MD, the Federation's Associate Medical Director for CPD, said the tool would help members and fellows keep their knowledge and skills current. Denise Basow, MD, of Wolters Kluwer, said the company shares the Federation's goal of giving physicians the most current, evidence-based information.
The company describes UpToDate as covering more than 12,000 clinical topics with over 9,500 graded recommendations, produced by 50 in-house physician editors and more than 7,300 expert contributors across 50 countries. It also cites its own 2020 research finding that 26% of UK and Irish clinicians changed to a more appropriate treatment or diagnosis after consulting it. The announcement does not explain how that research was conducted, so the figure stands on the vendor's word alone. Watching whether other colleges follow, and whether independent evidence supports the claim, will determine how far this recognition reaches.
A physician in the United Kingdom who stops mid-shift to look up a clinical question can now get professional credit for doing so. The Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom has approved UpToDate, the clinical decision support tool from Wolters Kluwer Health, as a continuing professional development activity.
The Federation is a collaboration of three bodies: the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Between them the colleges have more than 50,000 members worldwide. The approval follows new Federation guidelines that recognize online resources with current medical content, described as e-libraries, as legitimate CPD.
Under the arrangement, members in the Federation's CPD scheme can earn and track credits while using UpToDate to research clinical questions at the point of care. Credits come from consulting information relevant to a specific clinical question. The credits count as external, or category 1, CPD. Wolters Kluwer says they can be earned anytime and anywhere, on desktop or mobile devices.
Adrian Jennings, MD, Associate Medical Director for CPD at the Federation, said physicians can now conveniently earn those credits when caring for a patient and needing to research a question in UpToDate. He added that the tool will help members and fellows keep their knowledge and skills current.
Denise Basow, MD, President and CEO of Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health, said the Federation shares the company's aim of equipping physicians with the most current information for point-of-care decisions based on the best available evidence. She said the company is delighted to support Federation members in meeting their CPD requirements.
The company describes the product's scale this way: more than 12,000 clinical topics and over 9,500 graded recommendations. It says 50 physician editors on staff work with more than 7,300 expert authors, editors and peer-reviewers from 50 countries to continuously publish evidence-based information.
The announcement also cites company research on UpToDate use in 2020, which found that 1 in 4 clinicians (26%) in the UK and Ireland changed their course of action to a more appropriate treatment or diagnosis after consulting it. That figure comes from the vendor's own materials, and the announcement does not describe how the research was conducted.
Wolters Kluwer, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, reported 2020 revenues of €4.6 billion, serves customers in over 180 countries and employs about 19,200 people. What to watch next is whether other medical colleges recognize e-libraries as CPD in the same way, and whether independent evidence backs the clinical-impact claim.
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Physicians within the Federation CPD scheme can now conveniently earn external (category 1) CPD credits when they are caring for a patient and need to research a clinical question in UpToDate.— Adrian Jennings, MD, Associate Medical Director for CPD, Federation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK
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