By the numbers

eCME: A popular channel to pursue learning

By Lily Holmyard

Primary care physicians have been participating actively in online continuing medical education programs (eCME) for the past few years. In a survey conducted in 2008 by Essential Research with five hundred primary care physicians, 85% indicated that they participated in eCME over the previous twelve months and 41% participated at least monthly. In fact, eCME is one of the top digital activities among GPs. Why is that? For starters, it’s extremely convenient. You can learn on the fly with a smartphone or in the comfort of your office or home. You can learn at your own pace and spend as long as you want on a program. Half of physicians surveyed spent 15 - 30 minutes on an eCME program and one-third spent over 30 minutes.

Another reason is the credibility of eCME programs, many of which offer MainPro M-1 credits and are developed by physician organizations/universities. The only attributes ranked higher than ‘Credibility’ are ‘Relevance to Practice’ and ‘Interesting Topic’. When it comes to delivering on these three attributes, physicians view both ‘live’ and eCME to be equal. So, it’s not surprising to find the physician population evenly split in their preference for participating in an eCME vs. attending a CME event in person (44% preferred eCME, 44% preferred ‘live’ CME events, and 9% had no preference).

Will ‘live’ CME events become obsolete? Although a declining portion of the total CME mix, they will continue to be an attractive option to physicians who find the real-time, live interaction with colleagues irreplaceable. So far, this feature has not been duplicated in the eCME environment where colleague interaction has largely been limited to commentary and discussion forums. This is certainly an area that can be improved once everyone including the sponsors, providers and accrediting organizations overcome their trepidation of social media.

Physicians’ expect their eCME participation to double over the next twelve months but are the sponsors and providers of eCME keeping pace? The majority of eCME programs are sponsored or co-sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. The pharma mindset has been to develop one or two eCME programs for a disease area and then focus their efforts on getting as many physicians as possible to participate in the programs. They have less of a focus on physicians who have completed the programs and are seeking continuous learning through eCME. So, there is a missed opportunity to customize learning programs for physicians based on their learning needs and preferences.

For a while most eCME programs used the case study but now there are more formats available, including ones that leverage interactivity. For example, Virtual Practice – managing virtual patients through multiple visits. As the chart below illustrates, the widely-used case study format still remains the most popular, followed by virtual practice, streaming videos featuring specialists, and clinical study abstracts. This will probably change as physicians gain more experience with newer formats.

Although eCME programs are available on mobile devices, most of you are still accessing eCME on your desktop and laptop computers. Just over 10% of physicians have used PDAs and smartphones for eCME. We expect this to change dramatically when two trends crystallize: increased penetration of smartphones among physicians and availability of cheaper airtime in Canada. The growth in the number of physicians using smartphones at patient point-of-care and for collaboration with peers is well underway but it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll see cheaper airtime.

If you’re looking for Canadian eCME sites, the chart below lists the most frequently accessed sites among physicians.  Our research also shows that mdBriefCase.com is the most preferred eCME site.  You can access mdBriefCase programs either on www.mdBriefcase.com, www.mdPassport.com (it takes you to the same landing page), or www.cfpc.ca (click on ‘CME’ tab, then scroll down to ‘eCME Resource Centre’).  Similarly, you can access MDcme courses either on www.mdcme.ca, www.cma.ca (click on ‘CME/CPD’ tab), or www.cfpc.ca (click on ‘CME’ tab, then scroll down to ‘Online Courses’). Additionally, ten different medical associations (such as CCS, CPS, CSEM, SOGC) offer their eCME programs through www.advancingin.com.

If you have any comments about the eCME programs you’ve participated in or eCME in general, I would like to hear from you. Please forward your comments to lilyh@essentialresearch.ca.

Lily Holmyard is a partner in Essential Research Inc., a healthcare and pharmaceutical market research firm with offices in Toronto.

Source of data quoted in the article: Essential Research, ‘Essential Physician Version 1.0’, 2008, n=500

Posted March 4, 2010