Preliminary report from GAME Regional Meeting in Mumbai, India in October 2014

The first GAME regional India meeting was held in Mumbai, India on 18 Oct 2014. All major Indian CME stakeholders met under one roof to address the various challenges in the Indian CME ecosystem. This meeting essentially aimed to provide a way forward for a more formalized CME structure, which currently has discrepancies all around the Indian sub-continent.

The meeting was attended by CME stakeholders, including prominent names in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. GAME board members gave an intense picture of the CME/CPD environment worldwide, revalidation systems implemented, and the need not only to educate the health care providers, but also to aim for better patient outcomes.

The program director Mr. Vaibhav Srivastava (Insignia Communications, Mumbai) opened the meeting to describe India as being in a very primitive stage of CME set-up and gave insights into a set of uniform standards in the CME ecosystem for efficient clinical outcomes. Dr Vedprakash Mishra, the Chairman Academic Council, Medical Council of India emphasized that continuous medical education needs to be initiated right from the medical institutions. This mandate necessitates timely and periodic update of the healthcare education.

The meeting was attended by 105 participants from Medical Council, Medical Societies executives, KOLs’, pharma and Medical Communication Companies of India. There were 7 sessions and 2 panel discussions that took place during the meeting.

Mr. Vaibhav Srivastava, along with the GAME directors (Maureen Doyle-Scharff, President; Lisa Sullivan, President Elect; and Eugene Pozniak, Program Director, European Forum) contributed valuable insights regarding aligning CME in the Indian clinical setup to global standards. They have joined hands to work together in the long run to address this mammoth task. GAME intends to assist in creating awareness amongst the Indian CME stakeholders to create a cohesive CME environment that enables learning and clinical practice. This will definitely help in shaping the CME ecosystem in India.

Preliminary report: First GAME Regional Meeting in Latin America (Buenos Aires, November 6, 2014)

The central topic for the event was online CME. More than 100 live and remote attendees participated in the meeting, coming from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, other Latin American countries, as well as USA, Spain and Italy. The event was organized by Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (HIBA) and GAME, and supported by the Rome CME/CPD Group. The organizing committee was composed by Analía Baum, (HIBA), Jann Balmer (GAME), Fernán González Bernaldo de Quirós (HIBA), Alvaro Margolis (GAME) and Gisela Schwartzman (HIBA). Both live and remote participation was free of charge. Remote participation was via an internet-based videoconferencing system, and extended by exchange via twitter. Please see: https://storify.com/ayelenra/ceticshi.

Some of the topics covered included:

• Knowledge transfer from research in to practice with the use of information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
• Pedagogical theoretical framework for online CME.
• Just-in-time CME using the electronic health record.
• Online CME and International Professional Networks. Theory and applications.
• Accreditation of online CME.
• International experiences in online CME.

There were distinguished speakers from the Latin American Region, the United States of America and Spain. This successful experience opened the path for future events and collaboration across the Latin American Region and with GAME.

19th Annual GAME Meeting

Looking to the Future of Global CPD:
Linking New Ideas and Approaches to Reaching and Engaging Health Professionals

18 - 20 May 2014

Coral Gables, Florida, USA

Representatives from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia attended the 19th annual meeting of the Global Alliance for Medical Education (GAME) in Coral Gables, Florida, USA between May 18th- and May 20th and participated in a series of networking and educational sessions that focused on the impact of technology, research and new educational approaches in continuing medical education and continuing professional development (CME/CPD).
Invited presentations covered the following topics

• the theoretical basis of medical education research
  
• web-based patient engagement tools
  
• international professional communities
  
• the use of an integrated health information system to support educational strategies
  
• the integration of Evidence-Based Medicine and Best Evidence Medical Education to confront the challenge of improving outcomes
  

and were supplemented by panel discussions, a competitive game on global CME/CPD knowledge, and abstract presentations on a range of projects carried out in some of the countries represented at the meeting.

Dr Melchor Sanchez Mendiola of the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City provided a comprehensive, yet engaging, opening presentation that prompted participants to question their assumptions and reflect on various paradigms, ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies and conceptual frameworks related to medical education research. He gave a strong endorsement to the use of a mixed method approach in medical education research and highlighted the fact that the field itself is now an area of study in various higher degree courses.

To illustrate the importance of a research-driven educational intervention, Dr Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia presented an overview of an internet-based tool that addresses the medical issues associated with insomnia. The technology platform (BeStudy Manager) on which the intervention tool is based has lent itself to use in a variety of other conditions ranging from diabetes to paediatric encopresis. The specific application for insomnia is undergoing clinical trials in Australia, Denmark and Norway with plans for further testing in Germany. The technology platform is designed to allow flexible content management for either clinician education or patient intervention and, in Dr Thorndike’s opinion, highlights the potential of technology-delivered patient assessment and intervention tools in CME/CPD.

Dr Alvaro Margolis of Universidad de la República, Uruguay continued the invited presentations with a description and discussion of network structure and behaviour among professional communities in relation to his experience in Latin America. His central theme was that, because “knowledge is just a click away” the main reason professionals participate in conferences is to network and validate their current knowledge with peers and experts. His thesis continued with the notion that networks are one of the most valuable assets of a professional community and that technology now allows for radical innovations such as high impact courses, communities of practice and hybrid congresses in CME as well as in clinical practice. Dr Margolis concluded that International audiences may benefit from online CME to créate new communication links across borders taking into consideration elements such as languages, culture and systems of care.

Continuing the representation from Latin America, Dr Fernan Gonzalez Bernaldo de Quiros of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires described how an Integrated Health Information System (HIS) can support educational strategies for patients and health professionals. He outlined Initial evaluation of a component of a CME System integrated to an EHR in an academic Hospital in Argentina. Learning opportunities were linked to information system data reports but only 15% of the physician users accessed links offered. A personal database of information accessed is present on the HER, and a patient portal can also be used to provide information to physician users. Dr Quiros postulated that an integrated health information system can create a "learning health system" by expanding the focus from individual learning to learning form the system as a whole with the provision of indexed and contextualized information.

Dr Melchor Sanchez Mendiola returned to complete the roster of invited presentations by drawing many of the threads of the conference together in a presentation on Integrating Evidence into CPD towards improving outcomes. The plethora of evidence-based sources and resources for CME/CPD was reviewed as well as relevant applications of implementation and dissemination science. A comparison of Kirkpatrick and Moore’s outcome evaluation models was enhanced by the fact that Dr Donald Moore was one of the participants in the conference and was able to provide immediate input to the discussion. Dr Sanchez also emphasised the imperative of patient care and best evidence as the foundations for successful CME/CPD that leads to performance improvement in clinical practice and meaningful patient outcomes.

Panel discussions moderated by Dr Don Moore provided useful discussion and prompted many relevant questions from the audience, which allowed clarification of some of the theoretical ideas promulgated in the invited presentations.

Presentations chosen from submitted abstracts also highlighted the range of CME/CPD being conducted in the global community, with presentations on the the following topics:

Russian for Healthcare Providers: A Novel Course in both Inter-professional Education and Cultural Competency
Daniel B. Topping, MD University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Continuing Medical Education Credit Points - Disparity in India: A Case Study
Vaibhav Srivastava MPharm PGDBA Insignia Communications

Improving Patient Care by Integrating a Quality Improvement Initiative into an EHR System
Dale Kummerle PharmD Bristol-Myers Squibb

Improved Outcomes in CME Activities by Incorporating Patient Perspective
Tom Bregartner MBA Quintiles Medical Education

Impact of Electronic Instructional Methods on Knowledge and Competence
Kathleen Geissel PharmD CCMEP Medscape/WebMD

International Chapters – leveraging Local Organizations for Educational Dissemination
Connie Liu American College of Cardiology

Anti-bribery Procedures and Anti-corruption Laws: Where is FMV when you need it?
Maureen Lloyd BSc PwC LLP

For more information about the Global Alliance for Medical Education (GAME), please visit https://game-cme.org.  

Members, view the full conference report as well as speaker slides, conference program, and recorded post-conference webinar in Resources.

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.