AHC Media

At AHC Media, continuing medical education (CME) is no small deal – it’s the foundation of the company’s business activities. In fact, AHC Media produces around 1,400 CME activity hours each year, making it one of the most prolific organizations accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

When CEO and Publisher David Fournier purchased the company four years ago, AHC Media viewed itself as a publishing company that offered CME. Before long, it transformed into a medical education company that created CME via publishing.

“That might sound like a subtle change,” David explained, “but it’s actually a major realignment. We started looking at CME from an education standpoint instead of a publishing standpoint. Publishing is something we do, but education is our ‘big picture’ focus.”

To help learners take advantage of a wide variety of educational resources, AHC Media had a compelling need for a learning management system (LMS). Learners needed a platform for accessing content – live webinars, recorded webinars, monthly books – not to mention an interface for requesting certification across various types of accreditation.

“We were using a homegrown LMS that didn’t provide the learner experience we were trying to achieve,” said David. “We looked at off-the-shelf products, but most either weren’t built for CME or couldn’t integrate with our website and publishing tools.”

Without an LMS that met its objectives, AHC Media would have a hard time transitioning into the company it was trying to become.

Deploying an LMS for individual learners and organizations

As soon as David and AHC Media leadership saw the Rievent Platform, they knew it held potential. In addition to fulfilling the company’s need for a self-managed learner experience, they’d finally found an LMS that would integrate with their publishing interface and website without feeling like a separate application. But those weren’t the only things they liked about Rievent.

“The platform supported all our CME activities across hospital management, emergency room care, and clinical specialties,” said David. “Rievent also made it easy to generate credit letters for different accreditation types. That was hard to do with our homegrown system, and it’s something our learners really needed.”

Using Rievent, AHC Media was also able deploy learning management tools for enterprise clients, medical hospitals, and physician groups.

Thanks to robust reporting tools, those organizations can track learners’ CME participation, drawing on metrics like hours completed, accreditation type, and date range. As a result, they’re making more informed business decisions.

“These capabilities were instrumental in allowing us to scale and realign ourselves as a medical education company,” explained David. “In the past, you only needed to deploy an LMS for individuals, but nowadays you need to provide access to groups, too. The industry is changing, and having the ability to show a hospital administrator what their learners are doing is extremely valuable.”

“The platform supported all our CME activities across hospital management, emergency room care, and clinical specialties”

DAVID FOURNIER, AHC MEDIA

Tight integration leads to a coveted award

Integrating a new LMS with its website and publishing system was a high-priority goal for AHC Media. What nobody anticipated was just how successful the integration would be.

Thanks to the flexibility of the Rievent Platform and, in large part, the simplicity of single sign-on (SSO) functionality, learners are able to access CME activities straight from AHC Media’s web interface. It’s so seamless, they don’t even realize they’re using multiple platforms to complete tasks.

“As far as learners are concerned, our online tools do everything,” said David. “There isn’t a platform for viewing content, a platform for taking tests, and a platform for managing your account. It feels like a single platform, and everything is branded as AHC Media. You do everything in one place.”

In recognition of its outstanding combination of CME tools and an integrated learner experience, the Specialized Information Publishers Association gave AHC Media its 2016 award for Best Relaunched Website. “We’re not a tech company, but we beat out a lot of tech companies when we won the award,” said David. “The integration among our content management system, website, and LMS landed us the honor.”

Positive ROI and a more competitive brand

Besides enhancing learners’ overall CME experience, the Rievent Platform is helping AHC Media grow. Very few medical education companies have achieved the same level of integration among disparate software applications. That reality, combined with Rievent’s robust tools for CME administrators have made AHC Media more competitive in the marketplace.

The result? Increased sales, reliable revenue streams, and new opportunities for expansion.

“Our LMS gives us the robust capabilities needed to sell to physician groups, hospitals, and medical practices,” said David. “That’s the fastest growing part of our business, and we couldn’t have made it happen without Rievent.”