CME activity offerings respond to post-COVID learning environment
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In this issue, Jonathan D. Leffert, MD, talks with Elizabeth Lepkowski, MATD, about what clinicians want and can expect from post-pandemic CME activities, including which activities deliver the most value.
Lepkowski is chief learning officer for the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. She provides the leadership responsible for AACE’s education programs and events for the domestic and global community, accreditation standards and all scientific publications. She also oversees the disease state networks that serve as the organization’s community of support and medical advisers within their respective specialty focuses.
Leffert: In general, how has COVID affected how people use CME learning activities?
Lepkowski: Collectively, living through a global pandemic has driven dramatic shifts in our workplaces, child care, eating habits, our perceptions about technology and even our sense of time and work life balance. No one is the same as they were pre-COVID, and understanding what our new normal is post-COVID is still being worked out.
For CME providers and education program designers, the focus is not just on providing opportunities to receive CME or maintenance of certification (MOC) credits anymore. Clinicians want to know how CME learning activities will help them in their practices, they want to see practical approaches, tools and resources that allow busy clinicians to take that new knowledge and skillset and apply it in their practices with their patients right away.
I also am seeing, that based on changes post-COVID, we need to provide activities that are flexible in that learners are able to consume them whenever and wherever they’d like, experiential and interactive that allow clinicians to share their own experience with others, and meaningful, that is, purpose-driven or transformative.
Leffert: Do you see in-person learning activities resuming their pre-COVID interest, and if not, what are the causes and consequences of that?
Lepkowski: In-person learning is resuming but with many changes in strategies based on our research, survey data and feedback from our community. For in-person learning, participants are not just looking for didactic lectures in CME anymore. There has been a shift in mindset and behavior post-COVID — the value proposition to spend the time away from their practices and family, the additional expenses that go along with decreased CME budgets, and the personal perceived hassle and risk associated with travel challenges is much higher than it was before COVID. CME providers will need to think about this new value proposition when developing in-person learning activities and understand how to meet the needs of the whole community.
Also, many national conferences that historically had a large international attendance are not seeing those same numbers come back as a result of the continued impact of COVID in specific regions and shifts in spending with industry. This is having a major impact on national medical associations, and it affects the overall experience of a national conference as the attendance can suddenly feel smaller than it was pre-COVID.
Leffert: Over the next few years, what changes in CME activities do you anticipate as a result of the current environment?
Lepkowski: The explosion of digital education formats will shift CME portfolios to include shorter, more focused CME activities, such as the use of podcasts, to allow content to be available anytime, anywhere.
A change that has already emerged is the assumption that all content delivered in live conferences and in webinars will be recorded and available to registered participants after the event or will be available for purchase for those who did not register to attend the event. This now is assumed to be standard vs. optional as it was pre-COVID.
Also, new trends in CME will include content areas such as DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — social determinants of health, and communication strategies with patients to address misinformation. We are also beginning to integrate patient-centric resources into CME activities that serve as useful tools for clinicians to use when talking with their patients. This helps to empower patients to self-manage their own disease or condition.
Leffert: Will the changes that you foresee have a more positive or negative impact on the educational offerings to learners?
Lepkowski: I believe the changing trends in the industry are going to continue to challenge CME providers and education designers to keep up with new technologies to create both meaningful and flexible experiences that are easy to access anytime from any device and be automatically reported to all accreditation and certification bodies. With the return of American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) MOC requirements in 2023, this issue will be specifically important. A CME provider’s role is not only about creating meaningful CME activities, but also about supporting clinicians in tracking their learning progress and tracking all their requirements in one place. At AACE, this is something we have invested in and take very seriously. All AACE enterprise platforms have full integration and automatically track all CME learning activities and report credits to ABIM MOC. These are positive impacts from a clinician’s perspective.
Leffert: Any practical advice you can offer readers about how they can maximize their CME learning experience?
Lepkowski: At AACE, the annual meeting has the largest value for the investment. We provide an exclusive experience to those who travel and attend in person. There are deep dive discussions with all key plenary speakers. There are many options to attend small, hands-on workshops, and many of the sessions are recorded and part of the registration package. This allows a clinician to pick which sessions are of most interest to them to attend in person. Then, the other sessions will be available as recorded sessions for the rest of the year to review after the meeting. This format allows for a very personalized experience. You can register for the annual meeting and earn all the credits you need for CME and MOC requirements.
Jonathan D. Leffert, MD, is managing partner at North Texas Endocrine Center and past president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. He is an Endocrine Today Editorial Board Member and the Putting It Into Practice column editor. He can be reached at jleffert@leffertmail.com; Twitter: @JonathanLeffert.
Elizabeth Lepkowski, MATD, is chief learning officer at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. She can be reached at elepkowski@aace.com.
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