Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery

The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) strives to help orthopaedic surgeons improve patient care, and continuing medical education (CME) is a logical extension of that objective. According to JBJS Publisher Mady Tissenbaum, CME is an important source of revenue too.

“CME supports the JBJS mission of disseminating information about musculoskeletal care,” she said. “We also want it to be profitable, and we set yearly CME revenue goals.”

Until recently, JBJS relied on its Web host to deliver all of its CME programs. That vendor’s CME application was secondary to its primary product and was not highly developed. The platform it relied on was difficult to configure and made it impossible for JBJS to provide the seamless CME experience learners deserved. When JBJS wanted to implement a new CME activity that had greater complexity than existing, long-running activities, decision makers knew it was time for a new platform.

More flexibility and control

One of JBJS’s biggest challenges was control. “The previous provider’s template restricted us to course delivery patterns that didn’t make sense,” Mady said. “Customers thought it was clumsy, but we couldn’t change anything about the experience.”

When JBJS connected with Rievent in 2013, developing a custom CME template was priority one. Rievent provided substantial custom development for JBJS at what Mady described as “a competitive price and within a practical time frame.”

“With the Rievent platform we could add content to the CME template ourselves,” she said. “The added control was crucial because it eliminated serious workflow issues for us.”

Rievent also enabled JBJS to repurpose an existing database of test questions for all its CME activities. Now when it wants to update a course, JBJS can export questions from that database to HTML and add them to Rievent in seconds. Such flexibility was impossible under JBJS’s previous CME arrangement. With Rievent, it’s a normal part of creating and updating CME activities – and learners have started to notice.

“Course completion rates for the JBJS Recertification Course have been as high as 95%,” Mady said. “I did not expect them to be that high. It has exceeded our expectations.”

 “Course completion rates have been as high as 95%. I did not expect them to be that high. It has exceeded our expectations.” 
– MADY TISSENBAUM, PUBLISHER

Projecting positive ROI

With the new Recertification Course live, and learners using it to earn CME credit, JBJS put Rievent’s support team to the test. According to Mady, support has been prompt and efficient.

“The whole staff agrees,” she said. “Rievent’s excellent support ensures we will be able to work through any new issues that crop up. The training was very high quality, too.”

The bottom line: Rievent enabled JBJS to overcome the biggest challenges it faced in providing quality CME programs – and it’s helping the organization grow. “With Rievent, we were able to achieve our revenue goals during the first year,” Mady said. “Over the next two years, we’re projecting a profit.”