Study Assesses Knowledge Gains for SGIM Meeting Attendees

In September 2006, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education issued criteria to be phased in from 2008-2012 that challenge continuing medical education (CME) providers to employ �assessment or measurement tools� to analyze changes in strategy, performance, or patient outcomes achieved as a result of (their) activities/educational interventions.� This pilot study assessed the feasibility of surveys to measure the impact of CME provided at the 2006 SGIM (Society of General Internal Medicine) Annual Meeting on both short- and long-term educational outcomes. Investigators assessed responses to a brief questionnaire administered to SGIM meeting participants who attended one research pre-course, one research methods workshop, and/or one clinical workshop. Survey questions were administered at three points: 1) shortly after the registration deadline (participants = 39), 2) immediately following the CME activity (participants = 89), and 3), nine months after the meeting (participants = 61).

Findings show that all three sessions showed initial gains in knowledge: the research pre-course gain was large; the clinical workshop gain was moderate; and the research methods workshop gain was modest. Two of the three sessions showed a decrease in knowledge over the subsequent 9 months: the research pre-course decrease was moderate; the clinical workshop�s decrease was small; while the research workshop had a large gain in knowledge levels over the subsequent 9 months. Thus the authors conclude that it is possible to administer a semi-automated process for assessing the short-and long-term knowledge gains from a sample of national meeting sessions. However, they caution that even for a small sample this process requires a significant amount of effort and time for both meeting staff and volunteers that raises questions about the feasibility of tracking learning and retention following a national meeting.

Weiner S, Jackson J, and Garten S. Measuring continuing medical education outcomes: A pilot study of effect size of three CME interventions at an SGIM annual meeting. Journal of General Internal Medicine May 2009;24(5):626-629.

This study was funded by HSR&D. Dr. Weiner is part of HSR&D�s Center for the Management of Complex Chronic Care, Hines IL.