3 Reasons to Use CME Event Content in Your LMS

You have been producing quality CME content, and judging by the many return visits from your medical learners, your hard work has been successful.

Many elements go into the planning and delivery of CME events. However, with the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, planning these events has become nearly impossible, with many events being canceled or postponed. You need to resolve these serious issues, especially when you risk losing a great deal of revenue. While you can use your LMS to roll out multiple courses for your learners, you can also leverage it for your CME event content and to prepare your online event in a short amount of time.

In this post, we discuss three reasons to use CME event content in your LMS.

1. Increase Your Revenue

It’s been well established that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely hit the finances of healthcare providers. But here’s what’s less discussed: what it’s done to medical associations and societies.

According to a recent survey from the American Society of Association of Executives, hosting in-person conferences that draw hundreds or thousands of people is one way that medical associations can bring in revenue. The survey reported that 34% of healthcare associations lost more than $500,000 each due to the pandemic from event cancelations or postponements because of COVID-19, compared with 21% for all other industries.

For example, the Radiological Society of North America’s conference had to cancel its annual conference: it draws 45% of its revenue from that meeting, so it has suffered a loss of $56.1 million in total revenue. When you’re forced to postpone or cancel your CME event, you’re losing out on valuable revenue just refunding the costs of the tickets alone. So, with these CME events being such long-time sources of revenue, their losses can significantly affect your CME office’s operations.

2. Reach More Learners

Offering virtual events is beneficial in that you can reach more learners. Physical venues can be limiting for your attendees in terms of everything that they want to accomplish, so a virtual event can potentially draw a much larger audience than an in-person event would. In addition, learners who don’t have the time or money to attend due to the expense, time spent, or family and work responsibilities have the ability to do so in the virtual environment. For example, if you are expecting 3,000 attendees for your in-person event, you can potentially increase this by thousands more with the convenience of an online event, expanding your outreach to a wider stage.

Increase Online Events

In a recent CITI Program survey, doctors, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, and other healthcare professionals were asked about their attendance of online and hybrid meetings. For live CME online events, 90.4% of respondents opted for this format, while 9.5% had undertaken self-paced online training, such as those involving enduring materials.

This shows that there are strong reasons to use CME event content in your LMS. If you’ve already been offering your online CME courses in this way, why not consider using it for your virtual CME events?

3. Offer Virtual Events Where Your CME Content Is Available Anytime, Anywhere

Learners are busy with their practices and other activities, so their ability to attend conferences and other in-person meetings can be limited. Add to this the presence of the pandemic and the restrictions surrounding travel and social distancing, and in-person attendance is seriously compromised. Here’s where today’s technology comes into play.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) had to cancel its three-day annual on-site conference due to the pandemic. Around 17,000 attendees were expected. Using technology, the conference team shifted to the online format. Within thirty minutes of their opening session, nearly 13,000 people logged on from around the world. By the event’s end, the ACC had about 34,000 unique visitors, and at the ninety-day point, there were 63,000 unique users who had logged in to access the conference’s content. These ACC event attendees were the benefactors of cutting-edge technology.

As stated in the FirstWord Perspectives report, “The Future of Medical Conferences,” 86% of doctors use smartphones for work, while 53% use tablets. A growing number of digital natives and millennials favor 24/7, on-demand training over traditional conferences.

How many times have you seen a doctor using their cell phone or a tablet (or both)? In this age of electronic devices, the presence of these devices is as common as a stethoscope.

Your LMS can supply the technology for your CME conferences and other events. Through the use of audio and video conferencing, your attendees can access your event and its content anywhere and at any time, making these good reasons to use CME event content in your LMS.

Audio can come in the form of podcasts, while tools such as Zoom Meetings, GoToWebinar, Webex, YouTube, and others can help make high-quality video conferencing for events, such as webinars, small classes, conferences, symposia, advisory boards, small steering committees, and annual meetings, viable and convenient replacements for in-person meetings. All of these address the limitations of the in-person CME event.

Leverage Your CME Event Content with EthosCE

Despite pandemic challenges, EthosCE can help you transition from offering in-person CME events to virtual ones.

EthosCE has a viable and convenient way to plan for your virtual events. Over eighty-five clients have used its live event tools to host thousands of single and multi-day meetings and conferences throughout the United States and Canada. Its best practices involve providing virtual CME for some of the largest providers in the country.

At EthosCE, we understand the challenges of staying up to date and compliant with ACCME changes. We know how critical it is to get things done right the first time when it comes to team-based education and success.

To learn how EthosCE can enhance the continuing education of your healthcare teams, schedule a free 1-on-1 demo with one of our specialists today!