Continuing medical education (CME) supports continuous improvement and learning to help physicians and other health professionals address gaps in their professional knowledge. As such, it is required for the renewal of licenses, maintenance of specialty board certifications, credentialing, memberships in professional societies, and other professional privileges.
Your accredited organization must deliver your CME in new and exciting ways to reach your learners, going beyond outdated methods of lecture halls and slides. How you deliver your CME is critical.
The goal of this blog post is to highlight why CME delivery methods matter. We also list and explain the best practices for your delivery.
Address Different Learning Styles
Different individuals have different learning styles, and your learners are no exception. A study from the Social Science Research Network found that 65% of people are visual learners. As a result, more CME course providers are incorporating video and other forms of interactive content into their online CME. In another study involving 230 medical students, the following was discovered regarding visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles:
- 73% of students preferred one learning style.
- 22% of students preferred to use two learning styles equally.
- 5% of students preferred three learning styles.
These figures were then broken down further:
- 33% of students were visual learners.
- 26% of students were auditory learners.
- 14% of students were kinesthetic learners.
- 4% of students were auditory and kinesthetic learners.
- 5% of students learned using all three styles.
So, what can you do with this information? CME delivery methods matter for your organization because your learners have multiple learning styles and you need to address those. Tailor your CME courses to have options for reading text, listening to audio, and/or viewing graphics and/or videos, as this will enhance your learners’ overall experience.
Pay Attention to Learning Gaps
The learning gap is the term used to describe a learner’s deficiency or shortcoming. If it is removed, there will be improvements in their knowledge, competence, and/or performance, which in turn, can potentially improve patient health outcomes. For example, current guidelines may recommend a particular practice, but it is not always achieved in actual practice. The gap may involve clinical, administrative, or research practice or another activity that is used to provide services to the public or the profession.
Your ability to identify learning gaps is crucial in planning your CME activities, as you can help address educational needs. If you can answer these questions, you will see why CME delivery methods matter.
Identify the Current State of Physicians’ Desire for Learning
In a study by BMC Medical Education, it was found that CME providers would benefit from additional insight regarding the barriers and support that learners have when obtaining their CME. In open-ended responses, respondents suggested several ways to improve CME:
- Optimize locations.
- Reduce costs.
- Publicize CME effectively.
- Offer more courses.
- Allow flexibility.
- Ensure accessibility.
- Make content clinically relevant.
- Encourage the clinical application of the content.
In addition, physicians and other clinicians need to obtain their CME in ways that cater to their needs. Balancing their workplace and home life responsibilities is a major challenge. Your learners can greatly benefit from convenient locations, cost reductions for course costs, and the ability to take courses with accessibility at the forefront. From a clinical standpoint, your content must be relevant. It is your responsibility to provide your learners with ways to avoid barriers in learning and to establish work/life balance.
Provide Various Ways to Deliver CME through the Use of Technology
CME content creation can take the place of antiquated lecturing. Several formats can offer solutions for learning styles and for learners to address their home/life balance. This is where an LMS such as EthosCE can help.
The first solution is live-streaming. You can take your current content and adapt it for use for events such as online conferences, seminars, annual meetings, etc. so they are available at a time convenient to your learners. Using online, on-demand, live-streaming video conferencing extends your educational reach to more learners than if you only have onsite learning activities. With live-streaming, you can integrate with platforms like Warpwire, Zoom Meetings, GoToWebinar, and YouTube to help deliver high-quality video conferencing.
A second solution is to offer audio technology, such as audio recordings of your CME event. This is a powerful way to get creative with your CME event content. Podcasts have become the new talk radio for mobile devices, and they’re ideal for learners to gain new information. Listeners can subscribe to a podcast series and listen regularly. Keep your podcast updated regularly with fresh content, and you’ll attract even more learners.
A third solution is to provide internet-based enduring materials. Using the course-cloning feature in EthosCE, you can take video and audio content and develop it into CME learning content that can be used at any time and from any location.
Your CME learners will have ways to address their learning styles and gaps, and they can improve their work/life balance through the use of online, on-demand CME content that is easily accessible.
Use EthosCE to Help with Your Critical CME Delivery Methods
In order to recognize your learners' gaps, styles, and work/life balances, you must be prepared to deliver CME content that meets their needs. Use new online, on-demand formats such as live video streaming, podcasts, webinars, and enduring materials through EthosCE, which can provide an easy and accessible learning experience that demonstrates why CME delivery matters.
At EthosCE, we understand the challenges of staying up to date and compliant with ACCME changes. We know how critical it is to get things done right the first time when it comes to team-based education and success.
To learn how EthosCE can enhance the continuing education of your healthcare teams, schedule a free 1-on-1 demo with one of our specialists today!
