7 Unexpected Strategies To Refresh Your CME Needs Assessment

Take your needs assessment to the next level with compelling narrative and expert insights.

Needs assessments form the backbone of successful continuing medical education (CME) grant proposals. Over the past few years, they have evolved from simple literature reviews to targeted, data-driven analyses that paint a compelling picture of practice gaps and educational needs.?

The Write Medicine podcast recently featured two in-depth discussions on crafting winning needs assessments to help CME providers and writers navigate this complex landscape.

Today, we'll turn key points from those podcasts into seven actionable strategies you can use when creating targeted needs assessments for your clients.

The Evolution of Needs Assessments

Needs assessments have changed in the last 15 years. Before 2006, needs assessments did not really need to provide depth and focus. They were often cursory documents to request funding for education activities that a pharmaceutical or biomedical device manufacturer had already green lit.?

However, in 2005, the Senate Finance Committee investigated the CME grant-issuing practices of the 23 largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, responding to allegations that drug companies were using grants to promote off-label drug use.

Not good.

Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley raised concerns that manufacturers were using such funding to influence prescribing decisions and promote off-label products. If not, they reasoned, such funding likely created bias in CME activities towards pharmaceutical agendas.

These findings led to significant changes in the CME landscape, with stricter guidelines and increased scrutiny of commercial support. The Senate Committee urged the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to improve oversight and ensure the independence of education from commercial interests.

As a result, today's ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Continuing Education offer a roadmap for trustworthy education content. And needs assessments have become more critical than ever in demonstrating the genuine educational need for a proposed activity and its independence from commercial influence.

Today, a well-crafted needs assessment is essential for securing grant funding. It must provide a data-driven, compelling case for the proposed education while ensuring alignment with the ACCME's Standards for Integrity and Independence.

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Look Beyond Clinica Data

While some providers or writers continue to focus on clinical data as the core focus for a needs assessment, it’s vital to look beyond the clinical literature. Contemporary approaches to needs assessments emphasize root cause analysis and gap mapping - a process that examines the practice gap, identifies root causes, defines desired outcomes, and develops learning objectives to help address the gap.

Kristen Dascoli , a seasoned CME pro with experience in both editorial and business development, shared an example on the Write Medicine podcast from the ELEVATE program. This multi-year initiative started small but grew to make significant strides in gender-affirming care and cultural competency education in the HIV setting.

By analyzing outcomes data from the pilot, the education planning team uncovered crucial insights that informed the subsequent needs assessment for the national program rollout. For instance, it was clear from outcomes data that subsequent education should target primary care providers rather than infectious disease specialists only because transgender patients receive most of their care in the primary care setting.?

As a result, Kristen realized she and her team would need to adapt national programs to target primary care educational needs more fully. The subsequent needs assessment reflected this targeted audience focus by providing detail about their specific practice gaps.

Similarly, Nathalie Turner, MS, ELS , a nearly 30-year veteran in medical education who leads the U.S. grant development team at Medscape Education , points out that the overall trend is toward more concise, focused needs assessments that justify the need for education on the basis of specific, detailed practice or performance gaps.?

Natalie also stresses the value of outcomes data, subject matter expert insights, and root cause analyses as strategies to strengthen the case for education. More creative data sources, such as examining social media content and sentiment, can also enhance needs assessments and keep providers ahead of the competitive curve.

Engage the Interested Parties

Kristen and Natalie both stress the importance of engaging a range of interested parties beyond clinical experts when developing needs assessments, particularly for pioneering programs that address cultural or social issues in healthcare.?

This engagement might include seeking input from patient advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, and other partner groups working on the targeted issues outside the CME sphere.

The bottom line?

Consistently engage with relevant groups, including practitioners, experts, and community members, to gather insights and understand their needs. This approach ensures the content remains relevant and inclusive and addresses different populations' real-world challenges.

And while it can be controversial to include commercial supporters as interested parties, since needs assessments must be as balanced and free of bias as education content, don't ignore commercial supporter interests and priorities when developing needs assessments for grant proposals. The goal is to understand their focus and ensure the proposed education aligns with their strategic imperatives, not to promote commercial interests.

How do you identify those strategic imperatives? Kristen recommends reviewing the potential commercial supporter's latest earnings call transcripts and their medical grant transparency reports to learn more about their educational interests and goals.

Crafting a Compelling Narrative

How do you persuade the reader to jump on board with your (or your client's) education proposal?

Natalie describes the needs assessment process as problem-solving. Like an investigative journalist, writers must piece together data from various sources to tell a persuasive story. Once assembled, the writer must create a logical flow that sets the stage, illustrates the problem's significance, and provides gap statements supported by evidence.

Kristen uses a gap mapping framework to take a backward planning approach to needs assessments. Educators can create a cohesive and targeted needs assessment by starting with the desired outcomes and working backward to identify learning objectives, root causes, and the practice gap itself.

Ready to take your needs assessments to the next level? Get the Next Level Needs Assessments playbook!

Meet Educational Needs with The Backward Planning Primer

• Identify the desired outcomes -what you want to achieve through the educational intervention.
• Work backward to determine the learning objectives to help learners reach those desired outcomes.
• Identify the root causes of the practice gap the education aims to address. Understanding these root causes will help inform the content and design of the intervention.
• Define the practice gap - the difference between current and optimal practice that the education seeks to close.

Best Practices: 7 Steps To Create A Compelling CME Needs Assessment

1. Include key elements like a brief disease state overview, population-level and clinician practice gaps, root causes, a concise literature review, clinical practice guidelines, and outcomes data.

2. Incorporate subject matter expert insights, root cause analyses, and new data sources like social media insights.

3. Engage interested parties and consider supporter interests while maintaining compliance with ACCME by keeping a balanced and fair perspective.

4. Focus on the most relevant target audiences and differentiate between statements of need and gap statements. Both are important, but they serve different purposes within the needs assessment.

5. Gaps should clearly illustrate the difference between current and ideal practice at both the clinician and population health levels. Root cause analysis helps explain why those gaps exist.

6. Use AI tools to assist with grammar and idea generation, but not as a replacement for human analysis, investigative skills, and CME expertise.

7. Craft a logical, compelling narrative that justifies the need for education and tells a cohesive story.

Confidently Create Next Level Needs Assessments with Write Medicine

By staying attuned to the evolving needs assessment landscape and implementing these strategies, CME writers can develop targeted, persuasive needs assessments that secure funding for impactful education. As Kristen aptly put it, "Go for it. We need people who are brave and try new things."

Go for it with Write Medicine. Our Next Level Needs Assessment playbook is designed to give you the skills, knowledge, and confidence to create compelling needs assessments to launch your CME writing career with skillful guidance and one-on-one coaching. Learn more and sign up today!

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