Joint providership or joint providing is defined as 2 or more organizations working collaboratively to plan, implement, and evaluate a certified continuing education (CE) activity. The provider of the activity is the organization that awards CE credits/contact hours. The joint provider(s) is/are the other organization(s) working with the provider.

A commercial interest organization may not be a provider or joint provider of a CE activity. (See the definition of commercial interest in the separate section on that topic.)

The provider of the educational activity retains overall accountability for:

• Determining educational objectives and content
• Selecting planners, presenters, speakers, faculty, authors, and/or content reviewers
• Awarding credits/contact hours
• Recordkeeping procedures
• Evaluation methods
• Management of commercial support or sponsorship
• Ensuring the details related to the collaboration are documented in a joint provider agreement.

Joint providership is a great opportunity for organizations to collaborate and share expertise, workload, and other resources to plan, implement, and evaluate a certified CE activity.

An accredited provider (eg, AXIS), however, must be designated as the lead provider in this collaboration and is responsible to ensure that all parties involved adhere to the rules and requirements of all relevant accrediting bodies.

Offering CE credits/contact hours is a powerful recognition and marketing tool that assists organizations in attracting interested healthcare professionals to appropriate activities.

Joint providership was previously known as co-providership; the former term is more accurate to use at this time.

As of January 1, 2015, the term “joint providership” has been used by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education to reflect that 2 or more organizations are working collaboratively to plan, implement, and evaluate certified continuing education activities.

The change in terminology reflects the ongoing efforts to help healthcare professionals and all healthcare CE providers and regulatory agencies standardize terms and create a common language.

No. Continuing education (CE) providership is not for sale. Joint providership is a collaborative effort between an accredited provider (eg, AXIS) and your organization(s).

AXIS will not sell or lend our numbers/status to other organization. AXIS must be involved in program planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Yes. AXIS does charge a reasonable administration fee for the services it provides.

If you are interested in pursuing joint providership with AXIS, please Contact Us and complete the information request form to receive a detailed joint providership package, which includes information on relevant fees.