An ad hoc IOM committee is undertaking a review of issues in continuing education of health care professionals (in particular physicians and nurses) that are identified from the literature and from data-gathering meetings with involved parties. Based on this review, the committee is making recommendations for the establishment of a national inter-professional Continuing Education (CE) Institute to advance the science of CE by promoting the discovery and dissemination of more effective methods of educating health professionals over their professional lifetimes, by developing a research enterprise that encourages increased scientific study of CE, by developing mechanisms to assess research applications, by stimulating new approaches to both intra- and inter-professional CE, and by being independent and composed of individuals from the various health professions.