Jack Dolcourt, MD, MEd (University of Utah School of Medicine)
Synopsis
Focusing limited resources on tracking only CME credit distorts perceptions by overlooking the presence of other learners, but by using cell phones to automate attendance-taking, staff time no longer limits tracking all the constituencies attending RSSs. Awareness of the types of attendees can point to areas of potential interprofessional education.
Purpose
Automation using cell phones facilitates RSS signing-in for the entire audience, allowing a more complete count of the types of learners.
Methods
Because of limited resources, our RSS attendance tracking had been generally limited to only physicians eligible for CME credit. During Summer 2011 we began switching RSS attendance-taking from paper-based to an automated registration system. Attendees phone-in a unique session-level event code that in combination with their cell phone’s caller-ID, causes their attendance to be automatically registered in the CME tracking database. We calculated mean session attendance by attendee type for 2 RSSs before (July-Aug) and after (Nov-Dec) instituting cell phone check-in.
Results
| Dermatology Grand Rounds | ||
| Paper roster | Cell phone | |
| Physician | 19.7 | 24.2 |
| Housestaff | 0.1 | 5.4 |
| NP | 0.3 | 0.6 |
| PA | 2.3 | 3.2 |
| Orthopaedic Surgery Grand Rounds | ||
| Paper roster | Cell phone | |
| Physician | 10.7 | 20.0 |
| Housestaff | 0 | 32.5 |
| NP | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| PA | 2.0 | 3.5 |
| PhD | 0 | 3.5 |
| RN | 0 | 0.3 |
Conclusions
For all attendee types, the per session number of cell phone check-ins was greater than paper-based rosters. Depending on the RSS, previously-invisible groups may outnumber CME credit-eligible learners. Awareness of the types of attendees can point to areas of potential interprofessional education.
Funding Sources
This research was entirely internally-funded by the University of Utah School of Medicine Continuing Medical Educaiton office.
Declaration
I have no conflcts of interest.
NP – nurse practitioner; PA – physician’s assistant
