MedBiquitous Abstract Accepted!

I am pleased to announce that my colleague, Logan Thomison of OptumHealth Education and I will be presenting at the MedBiquitous Annual Conference 2009, April 28-30 in Baltimore, Maryland. We will be discussing our collaborative production of a full-featured eCME Web platform by integrating two leading open source applications. Here is the abstract that was accepted:

The Role of Open Source Web Technologies in Continuing Medical Education: A case study

The rapid emergence and evolution of open-source Web technologies are transforming the delivery and measurement of continuing medical education (CME). Today, healthcare organizations are able to leverage, customize, and integrate free, open source software applications to create innovative, collaborative learning environments that facilitate communication, collaboration, and the transfer of knowledge among healthcare professionals.

OptumHealth Education and DLC Solutions partnered together to create a full-featured Web platform for CME. The platform was designed to: 1) facilitate learning through access to learner-driven communication tools, SCORM-compliant courseware, and live activities; 2) streamline and reduce costs associated with CME program administration and data collection; and 3) conduct education outcomes studies by combining data from multiple public and proprietary sources. The Web platform was developed by integrating two industry-leading open source applications: Drupal and Moodle. Drupal is a comprehensive content management system with rich Web 2.0 features. Moodle is a SCORM-compliant, collaborative learning management system widely used by universities and associations.

This presentation will discuss the authors’ experience in the planning, development, and implementation of this open-source CME platform. Special attention will be given to describing the feature set, the benefits and limitations of the platform, and the integration of multiple data sources for outcomes analysis.