23 - Strategic Value of Conducting a CME Landscape Assessment

Objective: Supporters of independent medical education (IME) can encounter challenges when initiating support for education in new disease areas. Valuable insights can be gained by examining types of continuing medical education (CME) programs available within diseases. By assessing the current CME landscape within a disease, it is possible to identify gaps in current CME related to target audience reach, format of educational outreach, and scope of educational content. This information helps supporters make informed decisions, identifying existing CME and gaps in audience or education scope.

Methods: CE Outcomes used a two-phased approach to identify the current CME landscape within a disease. Annually, CE Outcomes identifies pharmaceutical companies that post transparency data specific to IME grants supported. In addition to insights gathered from transparency reports, targeted online searches are conducted to identify CME programs available over the past 12-month period. Search sources include IME transparency reports, general Google searches, specific platforms and educational provider websites and conference and association websites. The program description, learning objectives, and additional program details are recorded in a database. The program information is coded to align educational objectives by topics and data is aggregated.

Results: Collected information includes program support details, provider/accreditor information, target audience, format, educational focus, and credit/faculty details. The data from each individual program is aggregated and analyzed to determine trends in current CME programming.

Conclusions: CME landscape assessments are informative to supporters and providers of medical education, helping them understand what education is available and what educational gaps persist within a specific disease. This data aids in strategically planning future education.

 

Learning Objectives:

 -Understand value of conducting a CME landscape assessment within a specific disease area.

-Learn how to conduct a CME landscape assessment.

-Understand key information that can be elicited from a CME landscape assessment for use in strategic educational planning.