TY - JOUR T1 - Continuing professional development: introducing the ERS International Certificate in Respiratory Sleep Medicine JF - Breathe JO - Breathe SP - 11 LP - 14 DO - 10.1183/20734735.001617 VL - 13 IS - 1 AU - Sharon Mitchell AU - Renata L. Riha AU - Gernot Rohde AU - Anita K. Simonds Y1 - 2017/03/01 UR - http://breathe.ersjournals.com/content/13/1/11.abstract N2 - What is the greatest challenge in the delivery of quality care to respiratory disease patients? Is it lack of resources, avoidable harm to patients, or more complex disease presentation? Healthcare delivery has been in the media spotlight in recent months across many countries and the question of how to deliver safe, effective and efficient care to patients remains at the forefront of political agendas at a national level. Education is the passport to the future and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) is in the unique position of being able to work with the most respected respiratory experts internationally in order to design and deliver educational activities to raise standards of training for our respiratory health practitioners.Certification of specialists in respiratory sleep medicine for the purposes of continuing professional development http://ow.ly/4uX9309g3HsWe would like to sincerely thank W. De Backer who has led this project, guided us through many questions and challenges in the development of the sleep curriculum, and helped make plans for its implementation. He is an integral part of the success in standardising training for respiratory sleep specialists in Europe. The collaborating members of the ERS Education Sleep Working Group are Maria R. Bonsignore (University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy); Brendan Cooper (Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, UK); Thomas Penzel (Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany); Winfried J. Randerath (Krankenhaus Bethanien, Solingen, Germany); Wilfried De Backer (University Hospital of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium). ER -