5 Ways to Improve Your CME Website

Learners need your CME website to work. More specifically, they need it to deliver the content they need, include all CME activity tasks, and be easy to navigate.

But many CME websites fail to deliver on these basic requirements.

Maybe they don’t have integrated CME activities. Or maybe they require the learner to juggle multiple tabs or logins to participate in online CME. Even when websites that do include those features, they often package them within a clunky or outdated user experience.

That’s all bad news, but here’s the good part: Your CME website isn’t stuck with these shortcomings.

There are many ways to improve the online CME experience for your learners and, lest we forget, for you. Here are five ways to make it happen.

1. Ensure learning software blends seamlessly with your website’s design

When we describe a learner experience as “clunky,” we’re talking about a lot of the usual offenders: confusing navigation, lack of functionality, poor usability, and so on. But one factor that comes up time and again is design.

Basically, your CME learning software or CME LMS should, to the extent possible, feel exactly like your organization’s primary website. Both sites should have the same exact look and feel, thanks to an identical design.

When learners navigate from your main website to your CME website, it should feel like they never left.

Seamless and consistent design offers these benefits:

• Improved usability thanks to familiarity with the existing design
• Greater association between your brand and your CME activities
• Appearance of “ownership” over your CME experience, whether it’s your software or it comes from a vendor

Ultimately, your learners will come to know your online CME experience and your corporate website as one and the same. And when it comes to design and user experience, they’ll be right.

2. Make it easy to search for activities and events

Finding online activities and registering for events shouldn’t be hard. Learners should be able to log in to your CME website, easily navigate to an activity catalog and/or events calendar, and immediately understand what they’re looking at – and how to proceed.

There are different ways to integrate activity and event listings, but here’s how we do it in Rievent:

• An activity catalog and events calendar are available in our Learning Portal; learners can access them from a main menu after logging in.
• The catalog lists all available activities, but learners can identify the most relevant ones via a search bar and search filters.
• When learners find the activity they want to complete, they can begin directly from the catalog listing.
• The events calendar works similarly, and learners can register immediately. Integrated e-commerce tools allow them to pay for an event without leaving your website.

These features allow learners to find the activities they need without any hassle. Learners can also start participating right away by beginning the activity or committing to attend an event.

3. Integrate CME activities into existing journal content

Many publishers already have an online journal experience that they love – or that they’re committed to in some way. Their learners know this experience. They’re familiar with the journal website and are accustomed to navigating it.

The problem some of these publishers face is CME integration. How do you integrate CME activities with your journal website without forcing users to open multiple browser tabs or log in to a separate application?

The solution is to bring CME into your journal website.

We started doing this in 2018 when we introduced Rievent Connect. Using Rievent Connect, publishers can plug CME activities into their existing journal content. Learners log into the journal site the same way they always have. However, instead of just seeing the article, they also can take the test and get credit directly from your website.

Integrated activities make your online CME experience far more pleasant for learners. In some cases, it also allows them to complete activities on the go and from any device – something that wasn’t possible before. And you can apply the same integration to existing content that you plan to repurpose into enduring or on-demand activities.

4. Automate credit processing and credit claims

If your CME website or LMS doesn’t automatically process credits for learners who complete activities, enabling that functionality can save everyone a lot of trouble.

In particular, it saves you from a lot of extra work.

There are multiple ways to achieve this. One is to automatically award credit when a learner completes an online activity. As soon as the learner submits a post-test and earns a passing score, CME credit is awarded. That’s how learners receive credit after completing an online activity in Rievent.

Another option is learner-initiated and works well for live events, particularly for hospital RSS activities. At the end of each session, learners receive a unique code generated by the CME LMS. The code is associated with the session, and only attending learners can see what it is. They log in to your CME website, submit the code, and receive credit immediately. That process is a key to how Rievent supports RSS activities.

5. Give learners access to their documentation

Here’s an area where CME websites often fall short: learner self-service.

Many organizations with legacy CME applications still don’t give learners the ability to download and print critical documents. Transcripts, certificates, and test scores are things learners need to be able to view. In many cases, they also need physical copies. If your CME LMS doesn’t let them access those materials, you’re probably pulling and sending them out manually, which is a time-consuming process.

By letting learners access these documents within your LMS, you reduce manual administration and empower learners to control more of their own CME experience. And when your LMS also awards credit automatically, learners can rest assured that the transcripts and certificates they’re downloading are always up to date.

Of course, the very best way to improve your CME website is to…

…make all of these improvements at once.

That may sound complicated, but it’s not when you use Rievent. All of these enhancements are actually standard features in our CME learning management system. You can even opt for a hybrid implementation, which combines the features of Rievent Connect (think plugging activities into existing content) with other tools from our flagship product.
With all of these improvements in place your corporate website and your CME website blend seamlessly with one another. Learners can log in one time and achieve everything, all without any intervention on your part.