Thursday, January 28, 2010

Members in attendance at the Alliance for CME Annual Conference in New Orleans should plan to attend the IACME Reception at the Crescent City Brewhouse from 6:00-9:00pm. Additional details are available at www.iacmeonline.org/events. Online registration for this networking event is now open!

Friday, May 21, 2010

New for 2010, the Annual Conference will be held in May. The event will include educational presentations and breakout groups. Additional details will be available soon!

IACME is encouraging its members to reach out to their colleagues to become part of the IACME network. If you, or someone you know, would like to renew or join the IACME, fill out the membership form at http://www.iacmeonline.org/membership or email your interest to admin@iacmeonline.org.

 

Eric Weidl, MS, Internet Technology Consultant, eLearnConnection.com and

Intersites, Inc.

 

(A special “Thank You” to Barbara Kain, Director of Communications, and Dixie

Scott, Instructional Design Manager, Blood Systems)

 

Background: Blood Systems, based in Scottsdale, AZ, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest non-profit community blood service providers. It operates community blood centers serving nearly 600 hospitals in 20 states, two high volume donor testing laboratories, biological products distribution services, a quality consulting division and a world-renowned transfusion medicine research institute.

 

After several months of planning and development, the Blood Systems team launched an e-Learning platform for their clinical customers (laboratory technicians with expansion to physician participation) in October 2008. This case study will explore the strategy, challenges faced and lessons learned along the way by the Blood Systems Education team.

 

 

Blood Systems lacked a cohesive platform to deliver course content as a value added service to its customers. Teams within the organization had their own course offerings and delivery methods. Blood Systems wanted learners to have a one-stop shop for its continuing education offerings. In addition, the organization needed a way to automate record-keeping, student tracking and certificate fulfillment.

 

 

The management team and educational staff saw the growing use of Internet based learning among U.S. clinicians and decided it would be an excellent strategy to integrate all of its course offerings into a comprehensive e-Learning center. The new e-learning center would be made accessible to all of the customers of all of the organizations in the Blood Systems family. It also would be available to all Blood Systems employees.

 

 

The initial steering committee included Blood Systems executives who appointed members of the e-Learning team (the Educational Director, content developers, the Marketing/Communications Director, and the training and education department).

 

The e-Learning team engaged the consulting company (eLearnConnection.com) to develop and manage the new e-Learning web site. Monthly (sometimes bimonthly) conference calls were conducted with the team over a nine month prelaunch and development phase leading to Blood Systems e-Learning Center’s launch in October 2008.

 

You can visit the home page: http://www.bloodsystemseducation.org/

 

 

There were several primary challenges faced by the team and among them were:

 

• Establish the most user friendly navigation and functionality to ensure that clinicians remain committed to the e-Learning center (build long-term loyalty among learners).

 

• Ensure that the data reporting system enabled complete compliance with P.A.C.E. reporting requirements and integrated with the organizations’ data management system (establish a consistent and quality “data

repository” that would facilitate long-term data capture and reporting).

 

• Define a launch and maintenance communications program that would effectively invite learners into the web site (with password security protection) and provide ongoing visibility for participation in course offerings (acceptance and sustainability of web site as a primary source for online learning among clinician customers).

 

• Build the platform to maximize flexibility for participation of the Blood Systems divisions and affiliates, feature course offerings displayed by learner group needs, and provide customized communications to reach these select audiences.

 

• Maintain a robust, timely and needs-based content plan for P.A.C.E. courses and expand to CME-Certified programs for physicians.

 

These challenges were addressed over time. One of the most challenging problems required custom programming by the eLearnConnection.com team working with the Blood Systems IT and educational teams. It took time but a highly valuable data reporting system is in place.

 

These thoughts come to mind for others pursuing the development of a new e-Learning platform or those who wish to re-evaluate their current online offering:

 

• Establish the team and make sure each participant has “ownership” of their respective area(s) of responsibility and is committed to deadlines and communication among colleagues.

 

• Provide orientation, collateral material and talking points to customer facing staff so they are ready for the web site launch. Establish a minimum 12 month course hosting plan and re-visit on a regular basis to

ensure it is on track with learner needs.

 

• Build flexibility into the e-Learning platform to support multiple branded “looks” for various affiliated audiences and assure that the data capture system can also reflect a growing number of groups that will likely join

the e-Learning center as it evolves.

 

• Maintain consistency in communications with learners and gain their feedback on the learning experience. Let them know you are listening to them and making adjustments to ensure a high quality learning experience.

 

• Expand the role of your e-Learning center to include webinars, Articulate based courses, print and other learning formats as appropriate. Consider the development and hosting of non-accredited learning resources (e.g. case studies, clinical tools) that will serve to complement the learning experience in accredited courses.

 

Finally, and perhaps most important, educational managers should continue to build value in their organization’s investment in the relatively new and evolving world of Internet-based learning.

 

Please share your comments about this article as well as your suggestions for future articles: Email: al@elearnconnection.com Or call Al Blitz at: 847-945-0101.

 

 

Have you encountered a situation in your practice of CME that was a learning experience that you are willing to share? The IACME is asking members to help contribute to the shared expertise of our group by publishing cases from real life experience. Please write them up in a brief paragraph and send to Nikita Berry at nberry@rsna.org. Please let us know if you would like to be acknowledged or remain anonymous.

 

 

It is not too late to make plans for the Alliance for CME’s 35th Annual Conference which will be held from Wednesday-Saturday, January 27-30, 2010, at the Hilton™ New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans, LA.

For more information and to register, visit: http://www.acmeassn.org/ac/annc.html

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