With few exceptions, competitive industries are always working to keep up with the changing times, which is why the continuous education in healthcare cannot be overstated.
The healthcare industry is constantly evolving, either to solve new problems, enhance existing treatments, or expedite the way care is delivered to patients, worldwide. Failure to keep pace with new developments and trends does a disservice to the medical community and those in its care.
Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, George S. Kaufman sums up CE importance in healthcare nicely, “The kind of doctor I want is one who, when he’s not examining me, is home studying medicine.”
Of course, one needn’t stay home to continue their education. The digital age facilitates CE from wherever the student has a reliable internet connection.
However, in order to facilitate continuous education in healthcare successfully, healthcare associations must rely on the right platform.
Attendee Interactive has more than 20 years of knowledge and support to the healthcare industry, as well as the continuing education realm.
Here, we offer some specifics about our innovative solutions, along with evidence as to why CE importance is so critical to today’s healthcare industry.
Why continuous education in healthcare is key
To start, the importance of education to the healthcare industry concerns credentialing and the ability to perform a job, legally.
Most healthcare positions require certain qualifications that must be met, initially, in order to apply for a job.
Once employed, those credentials must be maintained, supported, and advanced by additional education and training.
Discover how to manage learning content, CME credits, and medical professionals’ certificates. Learn more
The reason?
Ongoing training ensures that healthcare professionals are up to speed on the latest technologies and treatments.
As The Institute for Healthcare Improvement explains,
CE is a vehicle for spreading best practices and how to improve patient outcomes.
Moreover, with continuing education, medical professionals can improve their own career paths by pursuing niche areas and specialties that set them apart from other applicants or competitors in their field.
Ultimately, patient care and safety is optimized by continuing education in healthcare.
Dr. Janina Beilner captures the importance of education,
With accelerating advances in health information and technology, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals must maintain and improve their knowledge and skills throughout their careers. That’s the only way to provide safe, effective, and high-quality healthcare for their patients.
The question then becomes how can health professionals access this new knowledge in order to improve their skills and stay ahead of the continuing education curve?
Learning looks different (better!) today
With the proliferation of e-learning and hybrid or virtual education, learning looks different today than it did even ten years ago.
Online learning has effectively leveled the playing field, with information now available and accessible to anyone with a reliable internet connection.
Breaking out of the traditional classroom, elearning offers a more flexible approach to both disseminating and digesting information, which means it’s easier than ever to ensure medical professionals and staff are empowered with the same education in order to work from the same page.
Marilyn A. Leonard, NY-based ASCP Supervisor credits continuing education with her increased confidence in her staff:
It’ll allow me to continually assess and guarantee that everybody in the lab, 24/7, all the different shifts and staff levels — whether full, part time or per diem employees — have the same level of competence.
Elearning platforms reduce the time and costs traditionally associated with continuing education.
Short and streamlined underscores healthcare CE preferences
Gone are the days when medical professionals had to travel in order to physically attend a lecture or workshop.
In fact, increasingly medical professionals are opting for CE opportunities that are shorter in duration. No wonder, given how limited their time outside of clinical spaces really is.
That’s why professional online learning is ascending in the United States.
According to the U.S. Continuing Medical Education Market – Industry Outlook & Forecast 2022-2027, the medical education market is expected to grow at 5.92%:
Healthcare is one of the industries where online and blended learning is replacing traditional classroom training at an incredible pace. Online learning is personal and is accessed using smartphones, tablets, and laptops at your choice of time and place. Online courseware is designed and built to be engaging and interactive, using quality images, video, audio, and animation to help users comprehend and retain knowledge.
What do online or elearning technologies look like?
Online healthcare CE can encompass a variety of elearning modes, including mobile apps, podcasts, webcasts, webinars, video content, seminars, live conferences, and meetings.
Each of these offers an opportunity to earn CE credits, either for certification or license renewal purposes or for professional development in a new technique, treatment or patient care philosophy.
That’s why the best continuing education programs are supported by event management solutions that make it possible to organize and grow your event, no matter where you host.
Continuous education in healthcare is increasingly accessible, with the right platform
By integrating your continuing education program with an end-to-end content management software, you’re able to streamline every aspect of learning for your next event.
Part of this accessibility requires organizing all CME activities and data management onto a single platform, complete with tools intended to streamline accreditation management, expedite planning annual healthcare conferences, provide CME credit tracking, and monitor progress towards the completion of certificates.
Attendee Interactive makes it easy for your healthcare organization to boost CME completion rates, while enhancing the learner experience.
For instance, attendees to your CE programs can upload their credits from other sources, allowing them to view all of their credits in a single space.
Additionally, accreditation management gives your staff greater control over accreditations.
From a staffing perspective, Attendee Interactive’s software supports better:
- Application & Review — gather all CE submission content quicker, while staying in line with accreditation standards
- Activity & Session Management — allows event planners to more efficiently manage speaker times, content, and room assignments
- Speaker Management — empower your CE event speakers to manage their content via our solution’s dedicated speaker dashboard
At the end of the day, Attendee Interactive offers your healthcare CE program a single set of tools for all of your CME activities, providing your healthcare meetings with premium coverage on an industry leading CE platform.
Take your CE efforts further and discover how to create revenue generating opportunities for your next CME event, along with strategies to grow stronger ties with speakers in your CE program.
