How to Adapt Learning Software to Your CME Activities
Managing CME activities might feel a lot like juggling, especially when you provide multiple types of CME. Not only do you have to deliver different activities in different formats; you might use different software to manage those activities.
That is, you might think you have to use different types of software.
Consider a publisher who offers journal CME and holds a bi-annual meeting that includes live CME. On one hand, there’s the journal, which may “live” on its own content delivery platform Then there’s the meeting, which involves lots of logistics. Aside from registration software, you need to send pre-event reminders and collect evaluations after the event is over.
It’s all CME, sure. But the technologies powering it need to do a lot of very different things.
Good news: You don’t have to use different software for different types of CME.
While you certainly can use different applications for different CME tasks, you probably don’t want to. Ignoring the difficulty and tedium of managing multiple pieces of software, there’s also the efficiency factor. The more tools you’re trying to juggle (and, let’s face it, they’re probably not integrated), the more time you spend bogged down in administration.
For the CME provider that delivers different types of activities and wants to integrate everything within a single application, there are basically three options:
- Use a single platform for all CME activity functions, including content delivery
- Keep your content delivery platform and add CME activities to it
- A combination of both of the above; we’ll call this the “hybrid” model
The option you select will depend on the types of CME you offer and your overall goals for providing a superlative learner experience.
Option 1: Use a single platform for all CME functions
When you want to combine CME activities and CME content into a single platform, this is your option. In a lot of ways, going this route makes things easier for you because you don’t have to use multiple applications for tasks like:
- Adding activities and content
- Creating pretests and posttests
- Creating evaluations
- Pulling reports for ACCME PARS
- Viewing detailed reporting data
- Supporting all activities from live events to enduring/on-demand and beyond
This is what CME providers do when they use Rievent for all of their CME. Administrators can log in one time from one place to manage literally anything CME related for any activity.
Need to add a new journal article and build an activity around it? Well, you can do that and set up registration for next quarter’s live event without leaving the interface or using another application.
Option 2: Add CME activities to an existing content platform
Many publishers are committed to an existing application for delivering scholarly content online. The problem, in many cases, is that the CME activities associated with that content exist separately. Learners might have to open multiple browser tabs and/or log into multiple apps so that they can read articles and complete CME activities at the same time. That’s not ideal.
When you’re in this position – and you’re primarily looking for a way to streamline your learners’ experience for journals or enduring activities – there’s a simple solution: Plug the CME credit into the content.
That’s what CME providers get when they use Rievent Connect. Learners log into the same CME content platform they’re accustomed to. But instead of using a separate app for the CME activity, they complete the activity (postests and all) inside the content application.
Basically, Rievent Connect integrates your CME activity with your CME credit. You can keep the content platform you’re already using.
Option 3: A hybrid model for different kinds of CME
Some organizations might want to take advantage of both options. If you’ve got an existing journal website, you can plug CME activities into that content. At the same time, you could use Rievent to manage live events or to deliver and manage all of your other CME, like enduring materials.
A hypothetical publisher that provides multiple types of CME might use the hybrid model as follows:
- Live meetings: The provider uses Rievent for the entire management lifecycle, including event calendar listings, registration, eCommerce, and evaluations.
- Journals: Since the provider is already committed to a homegrown journal interface, they continue to use it. However, instead of making learners use another application for CME, they use Rievent Connect to credit in the existing interface.
- Webinars and enduring materials: In the future, the publisher plans to offer more online CME. They don’t yet have a platform for publishing that content, so they plan to use Rievent for publishing enduring content, recorded webinars, and the CME activities associated with that content.
When it comes to CME, technology should adapt to the way you do things. Not the other way around.
You shouldn’t have to reinvent your internal processes to accommodate learning software with limited functionality. Instead, opt for CME technologies that adapt to your activities and your workflow.
At Rievent, we’re constantly innovating around the needs of CME providers. Our goal – and we think we’ve achieved it – is to provide an option that suits your activity management preferences, no matter what kind of CME you provide to learners.