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Developing quality educational content requires a thorough understanding of the key elements in its foundation, including contributing sources for needs assessments, curriculum design, educational strategy, and the logical "mix" of need, style, and outcome.

That's what we do-we build certified educational interventions that increase practitioner knowledge, change perception, enhance skills, and improve patient outcomes.

Learn More:

 Learner-Centered Needs Assessments

CME Enterprise understands the art and science of conducting needs assessments. In fact, we received Exemplary Status from ACCME in the Essential Areas and Elements relating to our data sources and methodologies for conducting needs assessments.

Three primary sources of data are used for developing needs assessments, and they all strive to incorporate the learner's viewpoint.

 

Expert Opinion

  • Surveys of faculty, academia, regulatory, and peer-reviewed literature


Participant Needs

  • Audience response for pre- and postactivity assessments
  • Surveys/focus groups
  • Postactivity evaluations and question summaries
  • Three- and six-month outcomes assessments
  • Performance gap analysis

 

Knowledge and Performance-Based Needs

  • Clinical trials and meta-analysis
  • National clinical guidelines
  • Specialty society guidelines
  • Epidemiological data
  • Environmental scanning
  • Practice performance measures
  • Medical errors and patient safety data
  • Pay-for-performance (P4P) measures
  • Physician competencies
  • Maintenance of certification and licensure requirements

 Curriculum Design

Designing a curriculum that addresses the needs of all stakeholders is what we do best. From identifying gaps in knowledge, to establishing measurable objectives, to conducting outcomes, we utilize a seven-step approach to curriculum development to ensure all needs are addressed.


Current CurriculumOur seven-step approach begins by identifying the problem and conducting a general needs assessment. We seek to answer:

  1. What is the healthcare problem?
  2. What is the current approach?
  3. What is the ideal approach?

Next, we conduct a needs assessment of the targeted learners. We seek to answer:

  1. What are the individual learning gaps?
  2. What types of educational formats and styles will have the greatest impact on this audience?

The third step involves establishing goals and specific and measurable objectives for the curriculum. We seek to answer:

  1. After participating in the educational offering, what will participants know better?
  2. What will they be able to do better?
  3. How will their patients benefit?
  4. How will the system benefit?

The fourth step is to develop and design the content using valid, evidence-based medical research and resources and translate these into relevant, timely practical and practice-based program content. Faculty is selected based on medical and clinical expertise, teaching effectiveness, objectivity, and independence from commercial bias.


Next we focus our efforts on the educational strategies. We seek to answer:

  1. Which type of educational offerings will be most valuable?
  2. Which format will be used?
  3. What will be the mix of the offerings?

We then approach the next phase, implementation. Our staff is fully versed on project management and implementation best-practices, and we apply these skills to all educational offerings of CME Enterprise.

Finally, we reach the stage where we can evaluate-both the individual learner and the program itself. We seek to answer:

  1. Did we meet our specific and measurable objectives?
  2. Have we increased knowledge, enhanced practice, improved performance, impacted patient outcomes?

 Determining the Mix

What is "mix" as it relates to certified education? It is the combination of a need, a learning style, and a desired outcome. 

Depending on the gap we are addressing, such as a knowledge gap versus a skill gap, how we develop education and the outcome we seek are variables that are customized to the educational intervention and learner. This table provides insight into how we determine the ideal mix in CME.

Need #1 Knowledge
Learning Style Learner-centered, lecture, Q&A
Outcome Improvement in knowledge level
Need #2 Change in attitude, confidence, or beliefs
Learning Style Learner-center, small group, point-of-care
Outcome  New way to look at a problem, new way to measure success/failure
Need #3 Skill
Learning Style Problem-based, combination of lecture, group, and individual learning over time
Outcome Change in a practitioner's behavior
Need #4 Self-directed knowledge
Learning Style Self-directed, manuscripts
Outcome Improvement in knowledge

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