Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning

What it is

The Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning (ACHL) is a continuing education provider that runs a free online catalog of CME and CE activities for physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other healthcare professionals. The site calls ACHL an "Award winning, ACCME Accredited with Commendation provider" and says that for over 20 years it has been "a leader in accredited continuing medical education and continuing education programs, supporting thousands of clinicians across specialties." Its heading dates that work to 2005, and the footer gives an office address in Chicago.

For the learner, the product is a searchable catalog. You create an account, filter activities by specialty or by type (live or online), complete an activity and collect a certificate. The home page lists "100+ free CME and CE online courses across multiple specialties", and a separate pharmacy section holds a library of 32 activities for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. The site sums up its own purpose in a single line under the catalog heading: "Helping You Translate the Latest Evidence to Practice."

The catalog

The specialty filter on the home page shows where the catalog is deepest. The largest groups are Internal Medicine with 50 activities, Family/General Practice with 48, Hospital Medicine with 23, Oncology with 22 and Geriatrics with 20, followed by Emergency Medicine (17), Hematology (16), Pathology, Pediatrics and Surgery (15 each), Pulmonology (14) and Obstetrics and Gynecology (13). Smaller groups cover allergy and immunology, cardiology, critical and intensive care, dentistry, dermatology, endocrinology, ENT, gastroenterology, hepatology, infectious disease, managed care, nephrology, neurology, nutrition, obesity medicine, ophthalmology, optometry, orthopedics, pain management, podiatry, psychiatry, radiology, rehabilitation medicine, respiratory therapy, rheumatology, sleep medicine, urgent care and urology. The online listing shows 81 results, and it can be sorted A to Z, by most recent, or by activities expiring soon.

Each entry shows its format, its faculty, a release date and an expiration date. Recent examples include an Interactive Practice Guide on asparaginase-based treatment in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma across pediatric, adult, and adolescent and young adult patients; a Playbook on amylin-based therapies for obesity; an ActionED activity on next-generation oral SERDs after CDK4/6 inhibitor treatment in ER-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer; and an ActionED activity on giving bispecific antibodies for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in outpatient and community settings. Other titles cover ERBB2 (HER2) testing in non-small cell lung cancer, pediatric atopic dermatitis, emerging therapies in pulmonary fibrosis, once-weekly insulin for type 2 diabetes, uncomplicated urinary tract infections, pulmonary arterial hypertension, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, hemophilia A and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP). The asparaginase guide was released on September 15, 2026 and expires on September 15, 2027, while the HER2 testing toolkit released on April 01, 2026 stays open until April 01, 2028.

Faculty are named on every listing and often mix physicians with pharmacists. The asparaginase guide, for example, lists Mitchell S. Cairo, MD, Wendy Stock, MD and Emily E. Dworkin, PharmD, BCOP.

Formats and how the activities are built

ACHL does not run one course template. Each activity carries a format label, and the ones on the site are ActionED, Interactive Practice Guide, Playbook, Digital Quality Improvement, Train the Trainer, and Game-based Education "powered by ACHL CrossMED". The home page describes the range as "Award winning designs that include game-based platforms, AI-driven algorithms, personalized learning platforms, integrated QI and implementation science programs and training of trainers programs", and speaks of "varied adaptive, scalable and multi-modal programs to accommodate different learning preferences and schedules."

Quality improvement runs through the catalog. Several activities are toolkits, such as "Out-of-the-Box Solutions for Building Clinical Capacity in Community Settings" for standardized HER2 testing, and many titles are framed around implementing clinical protocols or building site-specific solutions in a practice. The Train the Trainer format, which the home page groups with its training of trainers programs, is used for the urinary tract infection activity. The site also offers "Customizable point-of-care learning programs to support team-based learning", so the offer covers teams working together as well as individual study. Live activities sit alongside the online ones, and the catalog filter separates the two.

Credits, certificates and reporting

Signing up costs nothing. The pharmacy FAQ tells learners to "create an account, browse our catalog for courses designated as free, and complete the modules to receive your certificate." A Get Certificate area holds the learner's certificates, and a learner who has a certificate code can enter it directly.

Credit reporting is where ACHL takes paperwork off the clinician. If the learner opts in, ACHL reports earned credit to the ACCME PARS platform on the learner's behalf and sends a confirmation email once the credit has been processed; the preference can be changed later under My Profile. For pharmacists, ACHL reports to CPE Monitor, which requires the learner's NABP e-Profile ID and date of birth. An NPI number and license information are optional. The site says declining them does not affect participation or the certificate of completion, and that learners will "still fully participate and receive credit for this activity." The catalog listings do not show how many credit hours each activity carries. Questions go to a published email address, and the footer also gives a phone and a fax number.

Pharmacy CE

The pharmacy section is a filtered library of 32 activities that "offers evidence-based education to support pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across all settings in clinical, medication management, patient counseling and managed care functions." The page adds that learners can study strategies for long-term multidisciplinary care, and that the activities cover "the evolving role of the pharmacist in improving cost effective, patient-centric care."

Many pharmacy titles also appear in the main catalog. Among them are the once-weekly insulin activity, built around integrating clinical pharmacists into collaborative care for patients with type 2 diabetes, and the urinary tract infection activity, whose faculty includes a PharmD. The pharmacy FAQ says pharmacy continuing education matters because it helps pharmacists "remain up-to-date with the rapidly evolving fields of medicine and pharmacology", and that it "improves medication safety, enhances patient counseling, and ensures that clinical recommendations are based on the latest evidence." It also says the free pharmacy CE "makes it simple to stay compliant with your licensure requirements."

Mission and approach

ACHL's stated mission is "to deliver evidence-based CME and CE education that is practical, engaging, and directly applicable to patient care." Its vision is that "learning occurs through experience and reflection", and it aims "to facilitate a learning process unique to each learner considerate of their practice environment and professional goals." The site promises "Continually reimagined and newly innovated CME and CE designs" and education focused on "improving clinical efficiency and effectiveness practices." The course titles follow that line: most deal with putting newer therapies, tests and protocols into everyday use in community and hospital settings.

Who it suits

ACHL suits physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other clinicians who need accredited CME or CE and want it without a fee, particularly in internal medicine, family practice, hospital medicine, oncology, geriatrics and hematology, where the catalog is deepest. Pharmacists get their own library and direct reporting to CPE Monitor, and physicians who report through ACCME PARS can leave the submission to ACHL. Hospital and practice teams can use the team-based, point-of-care programs and the quality improvement toolkits, which are written around a care setting rather than a single learner.

It suits less well someone looking for courses outside clinical medicine, or an organization that wants a platform to build and host its own training: ACHL is a provider of education, not a course builder. The automated reporting covers ACCME PARS and CPE Monitor, and no other boards are named on the site. Because every activity carries an expiration date, anyone planning to complete a particular module should check its expiration date before starting.