The Challenge

The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Office of Continuing Medical Education (CME) is one of the largest US providers of accredited continuing medical education. In 2009, the Office of CME granted 750,000 certificates and accredited 5,400 live and enduring activities. Unfortunately, as the Office of CME continued to grow, their technology became fragmented and quickly out-dated. As a consequence, the Office of CME was faced with a 6 month backlog in processing CME transcript and credits, especially around their Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS). And, labor costs associated with data entry, training and support of the multiple departments continued to skyrocket.

Our Solution

As part of our multi-year contract, we implemented EthosCE Learning Management System to support over 300,000 healthcare professionals nationwide. The Office of CME has been able to consolidate multiple Websites, redundant or legacy databases (e.g., event registration, CME certificate generation, third-party partners, outcomes reporting), and migrate learner data within one technology framework. Our team also worked closely with the Office of CME to address their “administrative nightmare” by automating the application, peer-review and attendance tracking processes for Regularly Scheduled Series across the entire health system. In addition, we created a mobile application for EthosCE that now enables all UPenn healthcare staff to use their smartphones to quickly mark their attendance at Grand Rounds and case studies.

The Results

• 78% of the medical staff is using their smartphones to update their CME transcript.
• Eliminated 6-month data entry backlog with real-time CME transcript update.
• Users rate the ease of use at 4.6 (with 5=Excellent).
• Significantly reduced labor, training, and support costs.

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