Sixth of Six Trends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“According to Merriam-Webster, the term gig originated in the 1920s to describe any engagement in the entertainment industry that lasted for a specified time. Today millions of Americans participate in the gig economy as musicians, ride-share drivers, Etsy sellers, dog walkers, website designers and — you guessed it — medical writers! ”

Excerpt from: CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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Fifth of Six Trends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“The drumbeat of journal articles about physician burnout grows louder every year. . . . . The cadence reached a crescendo when one of our industry’s leading companies began publishing an annual series titled Medscape National Physician Burnout, Depression & Suicide Report. According to the 2020 report, the leading contributor to burnout is too many bureaucratic tasks (eg charting, electronic medical records). One family physician was quoted as saying, “All that paperwork sucks all of the enjoyment out of being a doctor.”

Excerpt from: CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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Fourth of Six Trends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“The US Food and Drug Administration is tasked with granting marketing approval to manufacturers that wish to sell prescription drugs and medical devices to the public. Many people are interested in the pace of new drug approvals, but for CME writers this assumes special importance. Numerous CME projects arise from the need for physicians and other healthcare providers to learn about the mechanisms of action and side effect profiles of newly approved drugs. ”

Excerpt from:  CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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Third of Six Trends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“The number of accredited CME providers continues to decline. As you can see from Figure 3, this is a long-term trend going back more than a decade. It is not easy, or cheap, to attain accreditation. Moreover, accreditation must be renewed every 4 to 6 years. Some organizations, especially small hospitals, have found the paperwork associated with this process so burdensome that they have simply let their accreditation expire. ”

Excerpt from: CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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Second of Six Tends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“After declining sharply since 2011, commercial support for accredited CME bottomed out in 2013 and has been climbing steadily. The average annual rate of increase since 2013 has been approximately 2.6%. (See Figure 2.) Commercial support, however, accounted for only 26% of all income received by ACCME-accredited providers in 2018. The rest came from registration fees, exhibit booth rentals, private donations, and government grants. For CME writers, most opportunities arise from commercially supported activities, so the growth of commercial support generally tends to boost demand for all kinds of continuing education programs and content.”

Excerpt from: CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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First of Six Trends Driving the Future of CME Writing

“A snapshot of today's strong interest in measuring and reporting outcomes of CME programs can be seen in Figure 1. Every year, organizers of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEHP) annual conference use a system of tracks to help attendees find the workshops of greatest interest to them. People who registered for the 2020 conference in San Francisco could choose from among the 10 tracks shown. The track offering the greatest number of workshops (13) was titled "Measurement, Evaluation, and Outcomes.”

Excerpt from:  CME Writer's Marketplace, 2020 Edition

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Creative Perspectives on CME Content Development

Panelists (from L to R) included Andrew Bowser, ELS, CHCP; Annette Schwind, MS, CHCP; and Ruwaida Vakil, MSc.

"Beyond the Needs Assessment: Creative Perspectives on CME Content Development" was the title of a 2-hour educational program that took place Thursday, November 21 in Harrisburg, PA. The program was planned, publicized, and financed with help from the Delaware Valley Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA-DVC).

Our program consisted of a lecture followed by a panel discussion. It took place immediately following the annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Alliance for Continuing Medical Education (MAACME) at the Sheraton Harrisburg/Hershey Hotel. Event co-chairs were Ruwaida Vakil, MSc and myself. In addition to Ms. Vakil, panelists included Andrew Bowser, ELS, CHCP, and Annette Schwind, MS, CHCP.

Prior to the event, more than 20 AMWA members who could not attend expressed interest in receiving any handouts or recorded materials that might be available. Selected materials have been uploaded to Google Drive and are accessible here, at no charge, for those who expressed interest. Here is a guide to what's available:

1) The complete PowerPoint slide deck. This deck contains 71 slides and includes my overview lecture as well as slides from each of the panelists, in alphabetical order. Be sure to download the actual PowerPoint file to your desktop - the preview version shown by Google Docs distorts many of the slides.

2) The video recording. You may need a software application such as QuickTime to play the video. I am a rank amateur when it comes to videography, so please be forewarned: This MP4 file is raw and unedited and it includes some long pauses as we wrestle with technology. The video begins with my overview lecture and ends after about 65 minutes. (Partway through the panel discussion, the laptop battery lost all charge.) Viewing tip: The slides projected onto the screen are not legible, so you may wish to watch the video on one computer screen while manually advancing the slides on another screen. 

3) Handouts. These include a pocket tutorial on writing needs assessments, a synopsis of an earlier AMWA roundtable about publishing outcome reports as journal articles, a collection of resources related to reporting outcomes, and brief bios of our panelists.


I'd like to thank Andy, Annette, and Ruwaida for their help and support producing this program. In addition, I'd like to thank the members of our live audience for driving to Harrisburg to attend, and for asking such insightful questions. Finally, I'd like to thank the staff and management who hosted our dinner at the Dog & Pony Restaurant. They did a fine job accommodating the varied needs of our group.


Access the materials below:

SLIDE DECK

VIDEO RECORDING

HANDOUTS

• Panelist biographies
• Tutorial on writing needs assessments
• Roundtable synopsis (from AMWA in 2018)
• Outcomes reporting resources
  

If you are interested in learning even more about CME writing, especially paid freelance  opportunities at a variety of CME companies, be sure to check out CME Writer's Marketplace. It's your trusty guide to finding an enjoyable gig. The 2020 edition is scheduled for release in February. You can reserve a copy and receive a 10% discount by visiting the Smashwords website.

Calling All CME Storytellers

Are you interested in CME?
Do you think it's cool that creativity and innovation are now explicitly encouraged by the main organization responsible for awarding continuing education credit to physicians?

Do you have a knack for using storytelling and narrative to craft an entertaining yet educational message?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, you will be interested in the dog & pony show we are preparing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania later this month. I call it that because event co-chair Ruwaida Vakil and I have reserved the private dining room inside the Dog & Pony Restaurant of the Sheraton Harrisburg/Hershey Hotel. 

The curtain will rise at 5 PM on Thursday, Nov. 21, immediately following the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Alliance for CME. The main event will be a panel discussion where each panelist describes his or her approach to a different CME writing assignment. Details are shown on the agenda. I'll set the stage with a brief introductory lecture, and then I'll moderate the discussion with plenty of time for questions from the audience. 

To keep expenses modest, a Dutch treat dinner will follow. Appetizers, handouts, and registration are all free, courtesy of AMWA's Delaware Valley Chapter. But space is limited. So if you'd like to join us, send an email to don(at)hartingcom.com. We still have some room. Deadline to RSVP is Monday, November 18. Hope to see you there!

Calling All CME Writers

THE ANNUAL CME WRITING SURVEY IS NOW OPEN

Graphic courtesy of The AMWA Journal

The sixth annual survey of best practices for writing continuing medical education (CME) needs assessments opened September 16 and will close September 30. This year we focus on how writers use learning outcomes data, avoid plagiarism, and marshal evidence to support statements of need. These topics will interest many readers of this blog.

Everyone who completes this survey and provides a valid email address will receive a summary of results by the end of November. Results will be used to develop posters, articles, and training materials for members of the American Medical Writers Association. Results will also be presented as a poster at the annual conference of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEHP) in San Francisco, California in January 2020. We will also display a poster showing trends from 2014 to 2018. Readers of this post should feel free to share the survey link with other experienced needs assessment developers who may wish to participate. Here's the link:


https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TR2TPWM

NEW! CME Writer's Marketplace, 2019 Edition

Best Practices for Writing CME Needs Assessments: 2017 Survey Results

Here is a screen snip of the poster we displayed at the annual meeting of the American Medical Writers Association in Washington, D.C. Send me an email (harting [at] nccn.org) to request the PDF. File size = 820 KB.

We will be presenting results of our 2018 survey (N=104) at the annual meeting of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions at National Harbor, Maryland, in January.

Fall Fashion Trend: CME Poetry

Image courtesy https://www.williamshakespeare.net/

Derek wrote a haiku, Scott wrote a limerick, so I wrote a sonnet. (Sorry, Bill.)


SONNET 18A

Shall I compare thee to the best NA?
Thou art more lovely, and more literate.
Rough gaps do gape in clinical practice today,
Our reference lists fall so quickly out of date.

Sometime too long-winded the writer doth blow,
And oft are grammar and spelling errors found;
Commercial bias and unfair balance mar the flow
Of flimsy evidence arrayed to support gaps unsound.

But thy eternal beauty shall not fade
Nor lose possession of nationwide best practices aggregated,
Thine outcomes data so impressively displayed
And thine educational needs so skillfully articulated.

    So long as fingers can write or eyes can see,
    So long should we share best practices in CME.



Poet's note: Our fifth annual survey of best practices for writing needs assessments remains open through 11:59 PM Friday, October 19.

Here's the link.

Calling All Experienced CME Writers

Graphic courtesy of The AMWA Journal

We’d like your insights on the best way to write an educational needs assessment (NA). The annual survey on best practices will remain open until Friday, October 19. All respondents will receive the raw results by November 30. Here's the link.

Co-investigators for this year's survey are Andrew Bowser, ELS, CHCP, of Narberth, Pennsylvania and Donald Harting MA, MS, ELS, CHCP, of Downingtown, Pennsylvania (the author of this blog post).

Every survey since 2014 has contained 10 questions. While some are repeated to track trends, this year new questions address where to find quotations from patients, whether non-peer reviewed materials belong in your reference list, and any unprofessional practices you may have noticed in NAs written by others. We are repeating questions about sources of evidence, charts and graphics, the patient perspective, and certain bread-and-butter details that all professional writers and editors care about such as lead time, word length, and pricing (if applicable). If you have written at least several needs assessments, please consider answering the questionnaire.

Analyzed results will be presented at professional meetings of medical writers and continuing educators. For example, a poster abstract with 2017 data has been accepted for display at the annual meeting of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) in Washington D.C. next month. A similar poster, featuring 2018 data, has been accepted for display at the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions in National Harbor, Maryland, in January of 2019.

In recent years, data from this annual series of surveys have been incorporated into a variety of posters, journal and newsletter articles, and workshops. Links to a handful of these resources are shown below. 

Workshop slide deck delivered at AMWA annual meeting in 2017.

Poster displayed at Mid-Atlantic Alliance for CME in 2016.

Journal article published in The AMWA Journal in 2016.

Mini tutorial for AMWA members published in 2015.

Workshop slide deck delivered at Alliance annual meeting in 2015.

If you are interested in even more information, feel free to leave a comment on this blog post (comments are moderated) or send an email to Don(at)hartingcom.com.

Honing My Leadership Skills

In recent years as a medical writer specializing in continuing education I have mostly worked alone. In anticipation of being asked to lead a small group of co-workers in carrying out a formal research study, I am reviewing basic principles of leadership, beginning with what I learned as a Boy Scout.

 

The colorful graphic above, called a learning map, was created using an online   application called GoConqr in the style made famous by Tony Buzan, as described in more detail here. The graphic was completed as a homework assignment for EDT 500, an introductory course in educational technology at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The content shown here is adapted from a pamphlet written for novice patrol leaders and published online by the Boy Scouts of America.


 

New Concept: CME Shark Tank

At a breakout session during the recent annual meeting of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions in Orlando, Florida, the idea of a Shark Tank-like format for an educational workshop was proposed. Here is a simple concept sketch of how the program might be set up, modeled after the popular reality show on ABC-TV. This sketch was done using a free online concept mapping application available at: https://bubbl.us/

Concept for a Shark Tank-like CME program.

Designing Workplace Learning Interventions

So there's this learning and development consultant named Clive Shepherd. He has a blog on Blogger called Clive On Learning, where he writes about various applications of media and technology to learning at work. Way back in late 2013 Mr. Shepherd wrote a series of posts about designing workplace learning interventions. One post in particular was about something called PIAF, which stands for preparation, input, application, and follow-up. Apparently if you follow this model you'll get better results. Here is what each of the letters stands for:

• Preparation: Helping the learner to prepare for a productive learning experience.
  
• Input: Providing the formal element which hopefully will inspire the learner and act as a catalyst for changes in behavior and on-going skills development.
  
• Application: Providing opportunities for the learner to test out new ideas and skills in the work environment.
  
• Follow-up: Helping the learner to continue the learning journey using on-demand content, coaching and support from peers.

Calling All CME Writers

 

Graphic Courtesy of AMWA Journal

Two Delaware Valley medical writers are conducting an online survey. Andrew Bowser and Don Harting would like your insights on writing CME needs assessments. The fourth annual survey on best practices closes October 6. Our survey changes yearly. While some questions are repeated to track trends, other questions probe new issues such as interprofessional education, storytelling techniques, and updating reference lists.

If you have written at least several CME needs assessments, please consider investing about 15 minutes to complete all 10 questions. We will provide the raw results to all respondents by Thanksgiving and disseminate the analyzed results during 2018.

Bonus: 10 lucky respondents will win a free book of nature essays, including one essay that won first prize in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women. The author happens to be a nurse who writes needs assessments for a leading CME company in Connecticut.

The survey URL is https://goo.gl/4hiJtC

Graphic courtesy of the American Medical Writers Association

This November I will be co-presenting a workshop titled Writing and Editing CME Needs Assessments during the annual meeting of the American Medical Writers Association. We will start by reviewing the latest results of our survey research on best practices and quality indicators, then break up into small groups for a hands-on editing activity. For a copy of the "recipes" we will be following during the breakout session, send me an email: don (at) hartingcom.com.

Poster Summarizes Results from 3rd Annual Survey

This poster (shown above, less than full size) summarizes selected results from our 3rd annual survey of best practices writing CME needs assessments. The full-sized poster (56 inches by 36 inches) was displayed Thursday, November 17 during the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Alliance for CME (MAACME) which took place at the Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania. We thank MAACME for this opportunity to disseminate these research data.

To view and download a PDF of the full-size poster, visit this link.

Previous Years' Survey Results Now Published

Image courtesy American Medical Writers Association

Results of the just-ended third annual survey of best practices for writing CME needs assessments won't be published until next year. [Exception: people who took the survey will have the raw results emailed to them by Thanksgiving.] BUT . . .  if you're interested in what we found out in the surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, you're in luck. The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) last month published a summary of the first two years' worth of survey results. The 4-page AMWA Journal article is posted in the open-access portion of the AMWA website, so you don't have to be a member to read it.

Here's the link to our article. (Scroll to page 128.)

The screenshot below shows you the headline.

Enjoy!