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Division of Continuing Medical Education Heersink School of Medicine

Course Director Survey Results

We undertook this survey to identify and prioritize opportunities to improve our services to you as you manage the application and reporting processes required to successfully implement CME regularly scheduled series. The survey was sent to 77 UAB physicians designated as course directors for CME activities, and we received 19 responses (24.7%).

We still welcome your input, so if you have not had a chance to respond, and have a few minutes, please complete the survey so we can get a fuller picture of your needs (with a 25% response rate, we still aren't sure if the conclusions below truly represent what you need).

**Also, we have a significant number of unfinished surveys,(26 responses on questions 1-4, 19 on questions 5-8) and it looks like a number of respondents intended to complete the survey but didn't click through to the second page. If you don't recall answering questions on whether you would like additional information on certain topics, how you would like to consume that information, and your level of interest in additional services, we'd appreciate if you could find a couple of minutes to go back and complete the survey.

Thanks,
Your CME Team

Results Summary

  • Results Summary
    • 75% of respondents have fully defined their grand rounds schedule for the 2016-2017 year
    • 25% of respondents had specific outcomes they intend to measure as part of their education plan
    • 32% of respondents expressed an interest in partnering with CME on outcomes assessment projects
    • There was no clear demand for additional information on any aspect of activity development, but engaging participants did emerge as a potential area for improvement
    • The clear favorite for ways to learn new information is through online tutorial information, with 15 of 19 respondents identifying that as their first choice
    • Electronic attendance taking is the clear favorite for new services
    • There's moderate interest in earning MOC part II credit for live activities
  • Action Plan
    1. Some solutions will be more easily implemented than others - so unfortunately, electronic attendance tracking will take a little research and time - we're working on it immediately, but it will take some piloting and feedback before we can implement a system that works for everyone. Please let us know via email if you're interested in piloting attendance software.
    2. We will create online support materials for various aspects of CME content development, starting with engaging participants
    3. We're almost ready to pilot online activity evaluation. Again, please email us if you would like to participate.
    4. We plan to change the financial disclosure process in the near future to reduce the need for collection for internal (SOM) presenters, and create an online option for external presenters
    5. We have implemented two pilot projects for awarding MOC part II credit for regularly scheduled series and can investigate, develop, and deploy options for your specialty
    6. Outcomes assessment is at the top of our agenda, so if you're interested in working on an assessment project for your activity, but didn't give us your email, please email us and we can arrange a meeting to discuss details.

Detailed Results

  • Usefulness of New Information

    No clear direction emerged for development of support materials in any one aspect of the CME development process. An average 28% of respondents ranking each item as either 0 or 1 on a 4-point scale (essentially thanks but no thanks). Engaging participants  (a weighted average score of 2.1 on a 4-point scale, 9 respondents giving it a 3 or 4 ranking of importance) and needs assessment (weighted average score = 1.95, 8 respondents giving it a 3 or 4 ranking of importance) emerged as areas for us to focus support content efforts on, and we will initiate materials development on those areas immediately.

    benefit additional information

  • Preferred way to learn new information

    15 of 19 respondents(79%) respondents ranked their online tutorials as their preferred method of getting new information, so we at least know the medium we need to use to push out information:

    preferred method new information

  • Interest in New Services

    Respondents are most interested in electronic attendance tracking when it comes to potential new new services (weighted score of 4.6 on a scale of 0-6, 13 respondents ranking it 5 or 6 in terms of level of interest):

    interest new services
    Again, this one will take the longest to implement, but we have initiated efforts to identify and test options. Online activity evaluation and financial disclosure did not spark as much interest, but both of these are high on the list for the CME team for these reasons:

    1. Online evaluations will allow us to capture and return feedback to you in a much more timely manner, which will hopefully aid the CME planning process and inform topic selection
    2. A new disclosure process can eliminate the need for forms for internal (SOM) presenters, and simplify the process for external presenters - that should help your course administrator

    While we will focus on electronic attendance taking solutions, we're also going to move forward with all 3 implementations.

  • Interest in MOC

    We have initiated projects with a couple of departments to award MOC part II credit for regularly scheduled series. Interest across all RSS directors appears to be no more than "moderate", (4 of 19 respondents are "Very interested, a further 8 are moderately interested). All boards have certain requirements that we need to research and adhere to, but we're happy to initiate the process for those of you that are interested:
    interest moc
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