Background

CPD Home provides Australian registered medical specialists, international medical graduates, PGY2+ trainees and non-vocationally registered medical practitioners a CPD Program of Learning (CPD Program). The CPD Home aims to provide a CPD Program that address a wide range of learning to meet the continuing professional development needs of its subscribers.

CPD Home is committed to supporting its subscribers to:

• undertake meaningful professional development
• meet their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements under the Medical Board of Australia’s (MBA)’s Registration Standard: Continuing Professional Development (the Standard)
• easily demonstrate that they have done so should they be audited by the MBA.

Purpose

To ensure CPD Home subscribers are informed about how and why we intend to communicate with them.

Objective

To outline the processes and purposes in our communications with how CPD Home will communicate with its subscribers.

Scope

This policy applies to interactions between CPD Home and its prospective or existing subscribers about matters relating to CPD Home operations and services, including communications about:

• the services we provide
• any matters relating to the CPD Program, or any of its policies, or fees, including changes, clarifications, or notifications
• learning that is new or available in the CPD Home Catalogue
• relevant information pertaining to the Standard
• their progress towards meeting their CPD requirements
• activities that would contribute to a subscriber meeting their CPD requirements
• recourses available to subscribers if their capacity to meet their CPD requirements is being impacted by financial hardship or exceptional circumstances, or they have a complaint, or want to have a decision reconsidered, reviewed or appealed.

Definitions

Please refer to the Glossary for definition(s) of terms that apply to this policy.

Policy

General Principles

We are committed to ensuring timely, efficient, and effective communications between us and our prospective or existing subscribers.

We aim to make readily available the information you need when planning your learning needs, identifying CPD activities, and recording CPD activities completed.

We are committed to supporting you to be proactive in your communications with us and in meeting your CPD requirements.

We are here to support you in meeting your CPD requirements and encourage you to reach out to us should you need assistance with anything related to your CPD.

We understand that you are busy and will work with you to accommodate your availability should we need to speak directly to you.

We aim to always be respectful, fair, and just in our communications with you, and wherever possible will endeavour to explain the rationale for decisions taken.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

We understand there will be times when you have questions. To help address queries as quickly as possible we have put together a list of FAQs. This list will be modified on an ongoing basis to reflect and address the queries we receive.

We encourage you to review the FAQs before contacting us, as the answer to your query may already be available.

Enquires

After viewing our FAQs, prospective or existing subscriber enquiries should be emailed to us at enquiries@cpdhome.org.au. This will allow us to:

1. direct your query to the most appropriate staff member to respond
2. keep a record of enquiries to inform the development of our FAQs, and quality improvement process
3. ensure we have a way to acknowledge and respond to your enquiry.

Alternatively, we can be contacted via phone on 1800 273 466.

If we cannot immediately take or direct your call, we will get back to you as soon as possible. Please tell us the nature of your call and the best times and number to call you back.

Email

Wherever possible and appropriate we will communicate with you via email. This will provide you with a written record of our communication and the information exchanged.

For prospective subscribers we will you use the email address you contacted us from to respond to you.

For existing subscribers, we will use the email address you have provided us in your ‘Account Details’. It is therefore important that you advise us of any changes to your email address.

We may contact you directly by email following up from a phone communication or when offering or providing support and guidance to assist you with meeting your CPD requirements.

Automated emails

Automated emails will be used to respond to enquiries sent to confirm receipt of the enquiry.

Electronic Direct Mail (eDM)

Electronic Direct Mail (eDM) will be used to send emails to all or a targeted cohort of CPD Home subscribers. These emails may be used to:

• send you our electronic newsletter
• seek your feedback on a CPD related issues
• remind you of the services and support we provide
• advise you of changes to or clarifications related to CPD Home policies, services, or fees
• advise you of relevant information pertaining to Standard
• send notifications, information and guidance relevant to subscribers identified by our audit or reporting process as either at risk of not meeting their CPD requirements or at risk of being made a non-subscriber.

Newsletter

CPD Home will email subscribers our monthly newsletter to keep you updated on our services, available CPD activities, and on matters impacting medical practitioners CPD.

The newsletter is key element in our communications with you, but should you not wish to receive the newsletter you can unsubscribe.

Phone call

Where we receive a call from you, we ask that you articulate the reason for your call, so that we can in a timely manner direct the call to the appropriate person to respond.

Should we need to call you back we will check with you, your location, the preferred number and time (within business hours) for the call back.

Where appropriate, we will follow up a phone call with an email as a record of our communication and the information exchanged.

We may contact you directly by phone when offering or providing support and guidance to assist you with meeting your CPD requirements.

Online Forms

CPD Home may provide online forms for existing subscribers for specific purposes, such as making a complaint, providing feedback or applying for a reconsideration, review or audit.

When you submit an online form requiring your email address, we will email you a receipt confirmation.

ePolls or eSurveys

From time-to-time we may invite you (by eDM, subscriber Dashboard alert and/or via our newsletter) to participate in an ePoll or eSurvey seeking your input to, or feedback on CPD Home matters. These may include:

• our services
• our performance
• policy changes
• process implementation
• potential improvements.

Notification of Changes

Subscribers will be advised at least six months in advance of any changes to the CPD Program for the subsequent CPD year, including any changes related to:

• minimum or maximum number of hours allowed on a CPD activity
• required domains of learning
• new or decommissioned learning activities that will be/have been required
• tracking or reporting processes.

Our aim in providing this advance notice is to ensure our subscribers experience no ‘unfair disadvantage’ as a result of the change.

Impending changes to the requirements of the CPD Program will be notified to subscribers via:

• the CPD Home Newsletter
• the CPD Home website
• alerts on the CPD Tracker Dashboard.

Other changes, such as the availability of new CPD activities will appear in the Catalogue and dedicated Contributor webpage. These may be highlighted in the CPD Home Newsletter or, if relevant to the subscriber’s scope of practice or CPD Plan, may appear in the subscriber’s ‘More CPD Learning’ feed on their Dashboard.

Related Documents / Legislation

The following documents are related to this policy.

1. CPD Home Audit Policy
2. CPD Home Financial Hardship
3. CPD Home Reconsideration, Review or Audit Policy
4. CPD Home Complaint Policy
5. CPD Home User Terms