Managing Medical Continuing Professional Development When Resources Are Scarce

In the ideal world, you’d have an unlimited budget and all the time and staff to create a robust and thriving professional development program. But in reality, those resources don’t always arrive, and when they do, they create situations that cost you time and money.

How can you make the most of a resource-scarce CME program to attract and retain your top talent, and why should you? Let’s look at what quality continuing professional development programs could look like, even with limited resources.

Stretching Your Professional Development Budget?

When you have a resource-scarce continuing professional development program, you may find that your budget is stretched as far as it will go. You may also have issues with staff turnovers that are causing a significant decrease in that budget. Still, you should focus your attention on the following.

Seek a long-term ROI. Your CME courses are your investment. In order to realize that investment and an increase in your ROI, you need an LMS that provides you with a clear view of the needs and interests of your learners and supplies you with data-driven insights. This way, you can create educational experiences that match their unique requirements. Having an enterprise-grade LMS offers a superior user experience.

Attract and retain top talent. Talent is not always easy to come by in today’s competitive job market. You’re trying to attract the best candidates, so you need to show that you have invested in their careers by offering strong professional development. When you offer training and development opportunities, you’re building a positive reputation as an employer that cares about its staff and wants to employ the best talent.

A Forbes report showed that 86% of respondents said that if professional development was not offered at their workplace, they would change jobs if it meant more opportunities for them.

Failing to offer engaging and relevant courses to your learners can result in them moving to other providers for their education. In order to retain top talent, your courses must address their specific needs. Offering CME to your learners as an employment benefit can keep them with you when they see that the courses provide a great user experience.

Maintain compliance. Your learners come to your continuing professional development courses for any number of reasons, though primarily because they require ACCME-certified CME credits in order to receive or maintain their licenses or receive re-certifications in their specialties.

Achieve better patient outcomes. Over the years, continuing medical education has been emphasized as the critical role in improving patient outcomes.

CME covers myriad topics and disease areas and has been proven to increase positive patient outcomes in areas like COPD, hypertension, oncology, immune deficiencies, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). When coupled with web-based continuing education, a program can improve knowledge and skills.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Go Online

In today’s digital age, it’s often difficult to walk out of a seminar or course and determine what you’ve actually learned. What content have your learners absorbed if you’re still giving stodgy courses filled with loads of text? It’s not conducive to successful learning, and once again, your learners may leave and go with another provider.

Many online courses are on demand, so physicians and staff can begin implementing learning immediately. Your learners are usually short on time, so with digital technology, they can consume a five-minute video on their phones rather than sit through a lengthy seminar. What’s more, you can plan multimedia-rich online content that includes videos, podcasts, and webinars.

Developing CME content online options helps stretch your budget in several ways. There are no associated travel costs, for example. Going online means your learners can take your courses using any digital device, whether it’s a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. For you, there’s no longer the worry about traveling to various meetings or conferences to present your content, saving your office money and valuable time. There are also fewer overhead considerations, like scheduling extra shifts or losing appointments because of planned downtime.

Get Started: Get an Online Course Hosting Provider

With the right platform, you can develop your continuing education programs, helping stretch your budget and increase the reputation of your healthcare brand. Find an online course hosting provider that offers:

• Branding resources available for streamlined delivery
• Automatic reporting and tracking
• Low or no-code website building for courses
• Website monitoring and automatic security updates

EthosCE provides you with enterprise-grade LMS software that automates your CME content journey. Use it to set up and publish your courses. Its data management and analytics enable you to build brilliant curriculum strategies, while automated administrative tasks save you time from constant labor-intensive burdens.

CME is no longer a fringe benefit; it’s a must-have for healthcare institutions that want to stay competitive. With limited resources, departments can think creatively and find the right tools to help make continuing professional development an affordable perk with serious long-term ROI.

It is possible to manage your continuing professional development program when you’re experiencing scarce resources. To learn more, schedule a free 1-on-1 consultation with one of our specialists today.