What Are The Benefits Of A CME Tracker?

Use A CME Tracker To Take Your Online Learning Management System To The Next Level

As a healthcare organization, you know healthcare professionals are looking for simple, convenient ways to obtain and track their continuing medical education credits.  

CME is necessary for most healthcare professionals, such as radiology technicians, pharmacists, doctors, and nurses. 

It allows them to maintain their licensure and keep their medical knowledge up-to-date to continue offering their patients the highest level of care. 

So it’s in your organization’s best interest to offer members a learning management system, or LMS, to help them earn CME and offer CME solutions to help healthcare professionals meet their accreditation requirements. 

But it’s not enough to just offer CME activities. Your organization must assist healthcare providers with CME reporting and credentialing. This means helping healthcare professionals track their CME certificates and credits to present to their employers and licensing board using a CME tracker. 

Let’s take a closer look at continuing medical education, what a CME tracker is, and the five benefits of using a continuing medical education tracker on your LMS to offer the best experience possible for your members. 

What Is Continuing Medical Education? 

Continuing medical education, or CME, is a type of educational activity that allows healthcare professionals to expand their knowledge after concluding their days as medical student. 

It’s meant to develop, maintain, and increase professional performance and ensure healthcare workers are aware of best practices in areas like pediatrics, emergency medicine, and patient care. 

To meet the needs of their members, an organization can offer educational courses that meet the needs of its target audience. Your organization can provide CME courses in person or via a continuing education platform. You can do this by: 

• Hosting Free CME Webinars

• Streaming A Webcast 

• Offering CME Modules Online

• Creating Hybrid CME Courses  

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

Those working in our health systems are often swamped and looking for convenience when it comes to CME. In fact, healthcare professionals and institutions like hospitals prefer webinars for CME delivery because they offer branding, full-service options, and mobility opportunities for participants. So it’s in your best interest to design CME courses centered around what your target audience wants. 

Unsurprisingly, busy healthcare professionals want to quickly and efficiently access both previous and current CME credits to take control of their credentials. They also want to be able to produce them at a moment's notice.

This is where incorporating a CME tracker into your LMS becomes essential. Let’s look at what a CME tracker is and how it helps healthcare providers take control of their CME experience. 

What Is A CME Tracker? 

A continuing medical education tracker, or CME Tracker, is an application that allows users to keep tabs on the CME credits they earned through a provider. 

It allows them to lightning-fast access their information so they can: 

• See how many credits they have earned in a given time

• Identify which activities appear on their CME transcript

• Quickly find gaps in CME credits 

• Review previous CME activities and topics 

• Download and print certificates 

A CME tracker is basically a way learners can manage CME data with a specific provider. This helps to reinforce eLearner participation and improve the overall experience.

However, CME trackers also offer critical benefits for CME providers looking to enhance their current continuing medical education program and improve workflows. 

Let’s look at five key benefits a CME tracker can offer your organization. 

5 Benefits Of Using A Continuing Medical Education Tracker On Your LMS

As a healthcare organization, you must get CE, CEU, CLE, and CME accredited to ensure you offer the best opportunities for your members.  

At first glance, CME tracking allows employers and CME providers to track which healthcare professionals are participating in continuing medical education courses. 

But the right CME tracker does more than just offer fundamental program insights. It can actually help elevate your CME offerings and help your organization meet its goals and objectives. 

Here are five benefits you’ll see when you choose the right CME tracker for your continuing medical education program. 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

1. Seamless Integration With Other Software 

As you design your CME courses, your goal should be to create an immersive, engaging experience for your participants. And your organization likely uses multiple applications to meet its needs as a CME provider. 

Stacking a CME tracker with your existing applications is the best way to give your employees and participants everything they need to succeed. 

A CME tracker is most effective when used with other types of software, such as: 

• Event Management Software

• Learning Management Systems

• Email 

• Spreadsheet Software

This is because CME trackers don’t do it all, but it’s an essential tool to incorporate into your current operations. 

Connecting a CME tracker to your existing software helps integrate capabilities a basic tracker lacks, like live virtual event capabilities, request history, and event registration lists. So on its own, it may be hard to see the value the tracker has to offer. 

However, layering a CME tracker with your current operations is a surefire way to take your program to new heights. 

Since your existing software already provides the services a tracker may lack, a CME tracker can add a layer of transparency, accountability, and accessibility to your current CME courses. 

2. Helps Your Organization Meet Attendance Goals And Promote Engagement 

Continuing medical education trackers don’t just help the user. A CME tracker can help boost visibility, sales, and leads by helping your organization craft an engaging, meaningful experience for your CME participants. 

CME trackers allow you to see which offerings are popular and underperforming, allowing you to direct resources to the most successful CME and adjust the underperforming course. 

You can also use CME trackers to mandate attendance for specific milestones, which will encourage meaningful participation. This means participants know which CME activities are necessary to meet the course's requirements successfully. 

3. CME Trackers Shift Administrative Tasks To Empower The User

Continuing medical education providers often face an endless series of administrative tasks, like communicating about certificates, managing credit requests, and fielding questions about completed activities. 

The beauty of a CME tracker is that it can help users take control of their learning journey. Instead of having to call or email your organization, they can access the tracker and gain all the information they need at a glance without having to contact an employee for assistance. 

Users can also review event attendance and resume CME activities they have yet to complete, making it a convenient way to take control of their learning. 

This makes it easier for them to assess how many credits they have earned and how many they must obtain to meet the requirements of their state’s medical board, which makes the entire CME experience more productive for all involved. 

4. Automates Email Reminders To Help Learners Stay On Track

Trackers allow instructors to set pass/fail requirements for offline components of your CME courses. The software will send notifications to the participant’s mobile device, reminding them to attend the meeting. 

CME trackers will also automate email reminders that will help keep busy health professionals on track with the assignments and modules they need to complete to successfully complete the course. 

Automating reminder emails will remove this task from your employees’ and instructors’ to-do lists, freeing up time for more critical tasks, like designing new CME courses, analyzing reporting data, and evaluating the effectiveness of existing CME activities. 

Automated emails also allow you to schedule messages at strategic points in the course. This helps to organize and streamline the CME activity, ensuring all participants get the information they require at the correct times without adding additional tasks to your schedule. 

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5. Allows Healthcare Professionals To Keep An Eye On Their Budget

While some organizations offer free CME, more often than not, clinicians must pay for their CME credits. 

A CME tracker allows users to set a budget and track their progress. Some apps even juxtapose the budget data with how many CME credits the user needs to meet their accreditation goal. 

Healthcare professionals won’t be left wondering how many credits they need and how much is left in their budget to obtain them. Participants can then make informed choices as they plan their continuing medical education activities. 

Likewise, your organization can use this feature to track annual CME spending against user participation, allowing you to see which courses, webinars, and other CME activities are the most lucrative. 

Choose BeaconLive To Support Your CME Needs

CME trackers do more than just participation management. They empower healthcare professionals to take control of their education. 

Trackers also allow CME providers like you to automate essential administrative tasks and monitor the success of your online continuing medical education courses. 

If you want to optimize your CME workflow and reduce your team's time spent on administrative tasks, look to BeaconLive for help. Our team of in-house experts can produce, deliver, and manage your organization’s CME certificates.