This series and its authors received the Almanac Author of the Year Award at the Alliance 2024 Annual Conference. Read the full series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

In the final installment of our article series focused on efforts to advance continuing medical education (CME*), we provide themes that have emerged through continued research conducted by the authors to understand the most relevant topics for framing future continuing professional development (CPD) focus. Further, we lay out future efforts and opportunities for advancing CME and continuing education (CE) in 2024 and beyond.

As a reminder, we have been focused on evaluating progress on the “20 predictions for CPD,” with the aim of identifying and prioritizing themes critical to the future of CPD.¹ Detailed project methodology can be found in the aforementioned articles in this series.^2-4 We recently convened three focus groups of professionals within our CME/CE community who had participated in the foundational survey research conducted earlier in 2023. In these focus group sessions, we presented the top-ranked themes that were identified as relevant to the future of CPD:

Following a review of the meaning of the key terms within these themes, we explored two primary questions within the focus group sessions:

• Are there needed adjustments to the themes to enhance their current relevance? 
• Are there additional themes to explore in future research that are relevant to the future of CPD?

Other themes that were identified in at least one of the three focus group sessions included the following: 

The above topics are a starting point to comprehensively explore more themes that are most relevant and important to the future of CPD. The survey and focus group research to date has been implemented following sound methodology for landscape qualitative assessment, though with a limited number of participants from within our broad CPD community. Therefore, in the next phase, we are eager to invite more stakeholders to contribute their voice and perspective to further enrich our understanding of the themes deemed critical to the future of CPD. We are particularly interested in hearing our CPD community peers’ perspectives on the following: 

• What are the relevant factors or drivers of change that you, as a member of the Alliance [insert Alliance member section] segment, see as most relevant to the future of CPD? 
• What are the skills and capabilities that you suggest we, as a CPD community, should be focused on to further advance CME/CE professionalism? 
• What are the critical drivers of impact that we, CPD professionals, should be focused on developing within and for all members of the Alliance community, to positively shape the future of CPD? 

Moving Forward Into 2024

At the Alliance 2024 Annual Conference, the authors presented several sessions focused on the goal of "Advancing CME.” The first was a workshop entitled “Unleashing Our Community's Power: Insights and Inspiration From the Field.” This workshop featured an opportunity to carry forward the themes of future CPD with the aim to outline actionable tactics that we, as individuals and the Alliance community, can take to ensure the future state of CPD is one built on bold and purposeful action.

Additionally, the fourth installment in this article series presented perspectives of representatives from pharmaceutical companies supporting CME/CE and representatives from the provider/collaborator community regarding overall improvements in outcomes reporting over the past five years and raised ongoing challenges.⁵

Two additional sessions at the Alliance 2024 Annual Conference focused specifically on advancing outcomes associated with CME activities in alignment with the challenges raised in this previous research. A beginner’s session, “Building Foundations in Outcomes: From Spreadsheet to Story,” focused on helping those who are newer to outcomes reporting understand the basics of creating meaningful outcomes reports, approaches to data analysis and the importance of articulating data clearly through reporting.

An advanced outcomes session “Advanced Strategies to Enhance Outcomes Reporting,” focused on elevating the quality of outcomes reporting. This session explored aspects of outcomes reporting that could be standardized, while emphasizing the need to tailor each report to uniquely represent the educational content and the clinical relevance of the outcomes data.

Through these sessions and future efforts planned into 2024, we aim to continue to advance CME/CE design, delivery and outcomes as a critical component of advancing clinician practice and improving patient care. We hope this series has cultivated dialogue with colleagues and stakeholders in CME/CE. We welcome continued discussion and look forward to insights from our peers and collaboration in the coming year.

References:
1.    Olson CA. Twenty predictions for the future of CPD: implications of the shift from the update model to improving clinical practice. J Contin Educ Health Prof. 2012 Summer;32(3):151-2. doi: 10.1002/chp.21139. PMID: 23008076.
2.    https://almanac.acehp.org/Outcomes/Outcomes-Article/advancing-continuing-medical-education-reflecting-on-the-past-and-charting-a-path-forward
3.    https://almanac.acehp.org/Outcomes/Outcomes-Article/is-continuing-education-a-team-sport-findings-on-team-based-learning-and-the-importance-of-team-focused-education-design
4.    https://almanac.acehp.org/Outcomes/Outcomes-Article/healthcare-complexity-and-the-role-of-cme-a-forward-looking-conversation
5.    https://almanac.acehp.org/Outcomes/Outcomes-Article/outcomes-measurement-in-cme-current-trends-challenges-and-future-considerations