Abstract
BackgroundThe amount of medical education offered through the Internet continues to increase, providing unprecedented access for physicians nationwide. However, the process of evaluating these activities is ongoing. This study is a continuation of an earlier report that found online continuing medical education (CME) to be highly effective in making evidence-based decisions.MethodsTo determine the effectiveness of 114 Internet CME activities, case vignette-based surveys were administered to U.S.-practicing physicians immediately following participation, and to a representative control group of non-participants. Survey responses were analyzed based on evidence presented in the content of CME activities. An effect size for each activity was calculated using Cohen's d to determine the amount of difference between the two groups in the likelihood of making evidence-based clinical decisions.ResultsIn a sample of 17,142 U.S. physicians, of the more than 350,000 physicians who participated in 114 activities, the average effect size was 0.82. This indicates an increased likelihood of 48% that physicians participating in online activities were making clinical choices based on evidence.ConclusionPhysicians who participated in online CME activities continue to be more likely to make evidence-based clinical choices than non-participants in response to clinical case vignettes.
Highlights
The amount of medical education offered through the Internet continues to increase, providing unprecedented access for physicians nationwide
Continuing medical education (CME) activities provide opportunities for medical practitioners to keep up with new information affecting the delivery of medical care, and ongoing participation is required by most physician state licensing boards [1,2]
These physician characteristics were compared to the physician characteristics and distribution in the U.S presented by the American Medical Association Masterfile [9] and did not significantly differ overall
Summary
The amount of medical education offered through the Internet continues to increase, providing unprecedented access for physicians nationwide. Continuing medical education (CME) activities provide opportunities for medical practitioners to keep up with new information affecting the delivery of medical care, and ongoing participation is required by most physician state licensing boards [1,2]. The number of hours of Internet-based enduring materials provided by Accreditation Council for CME (ACCME)-accredited providers increased dramatically in recent years, from 16,802 hours in 2002 to 57,944 hours in 2008 [3,4]. This three-fold increase was accompanied by an even larger increase in the number of participants choosing Internet-based enduring materials; the number of physician participants increased from 305,410 individuals in 2002 to 4,365,014, nearly a ten-fold increase. The review concluded that Internet-based CME improved participant knowledge, skills, and practice decisions, with results that were comparable to those obtained after participation in traditional CME activities
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