GAME Regional Meeting

 

Report on Proceedings of the 1st Regional Meeting in China of the Global Alliance for Medical Education Shanghai, November 28, 2013

A very successful meeting titled "Balancing Innovative Science and Improved Patient Care" was held in Shanghai, where an audience of 14 participants and presenters gathered for a day of discussion, information sharing, and case studies illustrating best practice. Paul Piché, B.Sc. MBA and Past President of GAME, was the local host and he welcomed local colleagues from several medical education and pharmaceutical companies. Four presentations were delivered (details below) and interaction in the form of questions and answers and in-depth discussion was a feature of all of the sessions. Several participants expressed an interest in knowing more about GAME and to engaging more with our organization in the future. We thank the participants for attending and engaging at such a high level with the content, presenters, and colleagues.

Paul Piché, President, HIT Global Consulting Services () started the day with a presentation on needs assessment and where this process fits in outcomes-based education with the goal of improving patient care. Paul showed processes and data from several oncology projects to outline how to identify gaps and to identify the reasons in order to define actions and apply educational methods to address these gaps. The data highlighted differences in needs between countries and target audiences and how local education must be tailored.

Mike Cunningham, Curriculum developer at the AO Foundation - AO Education Institute, Switzerland () described a global needs analysis in orthopedic trauma for practicing surgeons with a focus on data from Asia Pacific and particularly from China (n=196). Mike outlined the process for conducting and analyzing the data from a large online survey that was preceded by interviews with expert surgeons and described several projects that have been started in response to the needs of the target audience.

Chris Chan, Medwork () explained the CME Accreditation system and the CCME (China Continuing Medical Education, an institute of national CME committee administrated by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (previously known as the Ministry of Health). Chris described the structure and challenges related to providing CME/CPD to more than 6 million healthcare professionals in China, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and laboratory physicians, and outlined the future goals.

Paul Piché concluded the day with an extensive case study on the topic of anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation. Paul illustrated how online needs assessment can be applied to identify and prioritize gaps and showed how online modules, chart audits, data review, and tools to "share the learning" can be integrated as a best practice model for planning and delivering CME.

Report by Mike Cunningham, PhD, Communications Chair, Board of Directors of GAME

18th Annual GAME Meeting
 

Overview

Continuing education in the health professions (CEHP) is being challenged to show results. Despite a considerable amount of research and some limited advances, it is still not clear that CEHP is routinely delivering what society, organized medicine, and health care institutions expect – improved performance of health professionals. An outcomes-orientation has provided a useful framework, but it has not been enough. Recent developments in instructional design and formative evaluation combined with an outcomes orientation may provide the framework that CEHP needs to create the value that society, organized medicine, and health care institutions expect.
CEHP professionals from all corners of the globe will gather at the 2013 GAME Annual Conference in Barcelona to examine these issues and discuss how to move continuing education forward to producing results and creating value. The focus of the conference was

1. What are we currently doing in CEHP?
   
2. Is it working?
   
3. What recent developments have promise?
   
4. How can promising recent developments be integrated into continuing education practice?
   

Conference work concentrated in the following five areas:

1. Transfer of learning – how can the most recent patient care knowledge be incorporated into practice
   
2. Instructional design – how can instructional design strategies facilitate transfer
   
3. Assessment – how can assessment be used to support learning
   
4. What are some of the motivational factors that can facilitate success or create barriers in CEHP?
   
5. Continuing Interprofessional Education – how can continuing education be transformed to support highly functioning teams of healthcare professionals.