I spent a few minutes this weekend on YouTube with my son watching some of the great ’80s chewing gum commercials.

Big Red

Doublemint

Juicy Fruit

And the best one of all, Big League Chew

Perhaps it’s just because I was reliving childhood nostalgia, but man, they just don’t write product jingles like they used to. I have tried for years to convince Derek to create a CMEpalooza jingle, but apparently, if it’s not a haiku, his brain simply can’t compute.

In the ’80s, it was these product jingles that set brands apart. You’d walk into the neighborhood drug store (Thrift Drug for me [Drug Fair for me -Derek]), scan the rows of gum choices, immediately set aside Trident and Dentyne (“Yuck”), take one step toward Bubble Yum Bananaberry Split before being rapped on the head by mom or dad (“It’s all sugar!”), and then head straight to the gum that represented your favorite jingle. They had the catchiest tune, so surely their gum must be good, right? We were such idiots.

It’s in that spirit of creativity that we present to you today the CMEpalooza Fall agenda. Back when we were the only virtual live event for the CME industry, we knew that we could trot out any old slop and people would watch (we didn’t, of course, but we could have [note from Derek: good save.]). Now, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to up our game. Everyone wants a piece of what used to exclusively be our domain, so we’ve been extra thoughtful in putting together a creative agenda for CMEpalooza Fall (Wednesday, Oct. 14 – mark your calendars).

We have our first-ever whodunit. Another winner-take-something (or nothing?) trivia contest. Project managers get put into the spotlight for the first time. And then, of course, we tackle some of the big issues of the day (social justice, COVID-19), but in an interesting, unique way that will hopefully keep your attention.

We’ll have much more information on each of these sessions soon (and hopefully will fill in the few remaining “TBA” slots) but for now, take a gander at the Fall agenda while you hum your favorite product jingle. If you are feeling really inspired, maybe you can save Derek some time and come up with the official CMEpalooza jingle. We promise to give you partial credit.

 

(DISCLAIMER: It goes without saying, but this is a satirical post. The interview didn’t really happen. Or did it….) 

On the heels of the publication of last week’s Q&A by MeetingsNet, Derek and I have become hot commodities on the interview circuit. The networks have been dealing with our agents, and we have the Times, Post, Tribune, Herald, and Daily News all waiting in the wings. I thought that Derek and I had made an agreement to hold off on any further interviews until things cooled down a bit, but he apparently doesn’t listen to me (shocking, I know). Consequently, when his favorite local cable access channel called to see if he’d sit down for a no-holds-barred interview with their ace reporter, Glen Wallace (yes, you know his more famous cousin, Chris) about the current state of CME, Derek couldn’t agree quickly enough.

For everyone who missed the interview – that would be all of you – here is the transcript in all its glory.

WALLACE: Thank you and welcome to “Chestnut Hill Corner.” Mr. Warnick, you’ve agreed to answer all manner of questions, no subject off-limits. Thank you for allowing such candor.

WARNICK: You are welcome, I guess. Wait, is my wife going to see this?

WALLACE: Let’s not worry about that right now.

Let’s start with the surge of virtual, live continuing education across the country in the last few months. You still talk about it as, quote, “a fad.” But I want to put up a chart that shows the number of learners at virtual, live events over the course of the last few months. As you can see, we hit a peak here in April of 36,000 healthcare provider learners a day. Then it went down and now since June, it has gone up more than double. One day this week, 75,000 learners in one day for live, virtual education. More than double.

WARNICK: Glen, that’s because we’re measuring attendance like no one else in the world. Our measurement skills are unbelievable. If we didn’t measure attendance like we are, you wouldn’t be able to show that chart. If we only counted half of the people who logged on as learners, those numbers would be down.

WALLACE: But this isn’t a fad, sir? This is a clear trend.

WARNICK: No, no. I say fad, it’s going to go away. We have some providers that are doing a lot of virtual, live education but we’re going to get that under control. And you know, it’s not just this country, it’s many countries. We don’t talk about that in CME circles. They don’t talk about all of the virtual, live education being delivered in Canada and Australia and in some parts of Europe. You take a look, why don’t they talk about Canada? They are doing a ton of virtual, live education. All I can say is thank God I told them to build proper firewalls, because if I didn’t, it’d be a huge problem from a compliance standpoint.

WALLACE: But sir, we are providing more virtual, live education than any country in the world. The number of CME certificates being generated is higher than Canada, it’s higher than Russia, and the European Medicine Agency said they will no longer accept credits obtained from virtual, live education developed in the United States.

WARNICK: Yeah, I think what we’ll do is turn that around and do the same thing. If you remember, Glen, I was the one who pushed very early to stop accepting CME credits for programs developed in Europe.

But when you talk about rate of noncompleters of new enduring activities, we have one of the lowest rates in the world. I think we have one of the lowest rates of noncompletion in the world.

WALLACE: That’s not true sir. We have a – we had 22% of people who didn’t finish the post-test on all cumulative virtual, live events one day last week. You can check it out.

WARNICK: (Turns to Fall intern TJ off screen) Can you get please get me the rate of noncompleters?

TJ is right here. I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest rate of noncompleters in the world. Number one rate of noncompleters. I hope you show the scenario because it shows what fake outcomes data is all about.

WALLACE: All right. It’s a little complicated, but bear with us. We went with numbers from the ACCME, which charted the rate of noncompleters for 20 countries with the most virtual, live education for healthcare professionals. The US ranked 7^th, better than the United Kingdom, but worse than Canada and Japan.

WARNICK: Whatever. Can we move on?

WALLACE: OK, sure. Physician education — numbers of certificates way up after completing a virtual, live educational event. Nursing education — the most credit hours in the last 4 months last week. Pharmacists completing their necessary hours of credit 6 months before they need to. A lot of people say this is because we don’t have a national plan to keep these numbers down. You talk about individual providers and accrediting organizations. We don’t have a national plan. Do you take responsibility for that?

WARNICK: I take responsibility for nothing. TJ, can I get some water or something? (TJ hands Derek a glass of water, wondering how she got suckered into this role).

Some providers have done well, some have done poorly. They’re supposed to be able to administer as many certificates as they need.

Now, we have somewhat of a surge in virtual, live education in certain medical specialties. In other areas, we really limiting it. But you don’t hear people complaining about connectivity issues. We have all the Zoom accounts we can use. We’re giving out usernames and passwords to other countries.

WALLACE: But, sir, the number of virtual, live events is up 37 percent in the last week.

WARNICK: Well, that’s good.

WALLACE: I understand. Certificates generated are up 194 percent. It isn’t just that the number of programs has gone up, it’s that the number of certificates is growing.

WARNICK: Many of those learners don’t even bother printing our their certificates. They click A, C, A, D, and we put it down as a qualified learner. Many of them – I guess it’s like 99.7 percent – aren’t even going to remember that they attended the virtual, live event.

Go out and look at the news – you’ll see the number of virtual, live events are up. Many of the noncompleters from those events shouldn’t even count. It’s like one presenter doing a 15-minute Zoom talk. The number of noncompleters are up because we have the best outcomes measurement processes in the world.

No country has ever done what we’ve done in terms of counting noncompleters. You look at other countries – they don’t even separate out completers from noncompleters. It’s a completer as soon as someone logs on. They don’t go around having massive areas of assessment and we do. And I’m glad we do, but it really skews the numbers.

WALLACE: Let me just, let me just ask the question, sir. Why on earth would your administration be involved in a campaign at this point to discredit Dr. Brian McGowan, who is one of the industry’s top experts in assessing completers vs. noncompleters?

WARNICK: Because we’re not. If one man from the CMEpalooza team doesn’t like him because he made a few mistakes — look, Dr. McGowan said, “Don’t measure all completions.” Dr. McGowan told me not to ban medical students from virtual, live events — it would be a big mistake. I did it over and above his recommendation. Dr. McGowan then said, “You prevented thousands of pieces of useless data about student learners” — more than that. He said, “You prevented tens of thousands of pieces of useless data.”

Dr. McGowan’s made some mistakes. But I have a very good relationship with Dr. McGowan.

I think we’re gonna be very good with the virtual, live education. I think that at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear. I hope.

I’ll be right eventually. I will be right eventually. You know I said, “Virtual, live education is going to disappear.” I’ll say it again.

WALLACE: Then there are the true-false questions. From the first day that the ACCME said that true-false questions were acceptable as post-test options, you said that you weren’t going to agree. Will you now consider an industry-wide mandate to include true-false questions in all post-tests for virtual, live education?

WARNICK: No, I want providers to have a certain freedom, so I don’t believe in that. I don’t agree with the statement that if everybody puts in true-false questions, everything is great. Hey, Dr. McGowan said don’t use true-false questions. The CEO of the ACCME – terrific guy – said don’t use true-false questions.

Everybody who is saying don’t use true-false questions – all of sudden everybody’s got to include true-false questions, and as you know, true-false questions can cause problems, too. With that being said, I’m a believer in true-false questions. I think true-false questions are good.

But I leave it up to the individual providers. Many of the providers are changing. They like the concept of true-false questions, but some of them don’t agree they should be part of a post-test.

WALLACE: Mr. Warnick, you’ll be happy to know that our public access channel has a new poll out today, and you’re going to be the very first person to hear about it. In the national horse race, CMEpalooza is the second-most popular educational event for CME professionals behind only the annual Alliance conference, 49 percent to 41. That’s 3 or 4 points slimmer than it was a month ago. And on the issues, people trust the Alliance more to foster collaboration by 17 points, to recognize the diversity of providers by 21 points, and even on creativity, they believe in the Alliance more by 1 point. I understand that there are more than 60 days until CMEpalooza Fall, but at this point, you guys are losing.

WARNICK: First of all, we’re not losing, because those are fake polls. They were fake in 2019 and now they’re even more fake. The polls were much worse in 2019. They interviewed 22 percent accredited providers. Well, how do you do 22 percent accredited providers? You see what’s going on. I have other polls that say CMEpalooza is better. I have a poll where we’re leading across every provider type. And I don’t believe that your polls, they’re among the worst. They got it all wrong in 2019. They’ve been wrong on every poll I’ve ever seen.

WALLACE: I — I must tell you…

WARNICK: No, I’m just telling you. And let me ask you this, so on creativity, we’ve always led on creativity by a lot.

WALLACE: But I’ve got to tell you, if I may, sir, respectfully, in our poll, they asked people, which meeting is more organized? Who’s got — whose faculty is better? The Alliance beats you on that.

WARNICK: Well, I’ll tell you what, let’s take a test. Let’s take the CHCP test right now. Let’s go down, the Alliance president and I will take a test. Let her take the same test that I took.

WALLACE: Incidentally, I took the test too when I heard that you passed it.

WARNICK: Yeah, how did you do?

WALLACE: It’s not – well, it’s not the hardest test. They have a picture and it says “what’s that” and it’s a doctor.

WARNICK: No no no…

WARNICK: You see, that’s all misrepresentation.

WALLACE: Well, that’s what it was on the web.

WARNICK: It’s all misrepresentation. Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. I’ll bet you couldn’t, they get very hard, the last five questions.

WALLACE: Well, one of them was count the number of learners in the room. They showed you a picture with stick figures.

WARNICK: Let me tell you…

WALLACE: There’s three. Six. Nine.

WARNICK: … you couldn’t answer — you couldn’t answer many of the questions.

WALLACE: Ok, what’s the question?

WARNICK: I’ll get you the test, I’d like to give it. I’ll guarantee you that the Alliance president could not answer those questions.

WALLACE: OK.

WARNICK: OK. And I answered all 35 questions correctly. I could be a CHCP if I wanted to be one.

WALLACE: One final question — in general, not talking about CMEpalooza, are you a loser?

WARNICK: I’m not a loser. I’m a college graduate. I have a job.

WALLACE: But are you gracious?

WARNICK: You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think certificates by mail is going to rig the accreditation system. I really do.

WALLACE: Are you suggesting that learners who get a certificate mailed to them shouldn’t be able to be recertified as healthcare professionals?

WARNICK: No. I have to see. I have to see.

WALLACE: There is a tradition in the medical industry — in fact, one of the prides of the industry — is the acknowledgment that no matter how a CME certificate is earned, it is honored. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?

WARNICK: What I’m saying is that I will tell you eventually. I’ll keep you in suspense. OK?

I think that’s enough. TJ, walk me home. (Storms out)

Earlier this week, Derek and I were interviewed for a MeetingsNet article focused on (what else?) how the world of CME has changed in these last few months as the shift to virtual live education has gained steam. Apparently, since we’ve been doing this CMEpalooza thing way before virtual live education became cool, we’re supposed to have some sort of useful insight to share. Sadly, we spent most of the conversation debating which was the coolest of the Keebler Elves (did you know they all have names? Yes, yes, they do. Buckets is my guy).

That’ll teach anyone in the future to expect anything of significance to come out of our mouths.

But I guess since you’re here and everything, I might as well make myself useful and offer some personal observations based on what I’ve witnessed over the course of the last few months related to live virtual education:

1. If you build it, they will come
   I suspect there was some initial consternation over whether there was going to be an audience for virtual live education. But with so many people in so many industries (and yes, even healthcare) working from home or working unusual hours, the attendance for many live broadcasts has been somewhat of a shocker. The viewership for CMEpalooza Spring far surpassed any previous year’s event, and I know that a few of the larger specialty societies had their servers crash due to extraordinary levels of traffic.
2. The days of bad connections and shoddy audio/video are over (almost)
   In the early days of CMEpalooza, there would inevitably be a session where we couldn’t get someone’s video to work or the audio would trail way behind the video images. That’s been pretty rare in the last year, and it’s not only because Derek and I are really, really good at what we do (note from Derek: we’re not.) Online A/V technology has gotten much better and even the default camera on your laptop or phone will typically provide a pretty crisp image. It’s the rare live online session I’ve watched over the course of the last few weeks where I said, “Ew, that looks/sounds pretty terrible.” And with 5G right around the corner, things will only get better.
3. The bells and whistles surrounding online platforms have gotten fancier (and probably more expensive) but they still can’t cover up bad ideas and bad content.
   There are still too many people who are falling prey to unproven gimmicks that turn out to be either very confusing for attendees or simply don’t work. I attended one online event where they took a room of 100 people and divided us up into breakout groups of 8 people. We were told, “Here are the 5 things we want you to talk about in the next 15 minutes. And… breakout!” In my breakout room, we ended up staring at each other for 2 minutes in total silence, one person disconnected due to the awkwardness, and then we wasted the next 10 minutes mostly talking about nonsense. One of those ideas that may have sounded promising, but just didn’t work. At all.
4. There is a lack of creativity on session design
   Pretty much every session I have attended has been the same – one or more presenters, a handful of slides (usually), maybe a polling question or two, and then some Q&A from the audience. There hasn’t been a single time I’m walked away from a session and said, “Hey, that was pretty cool.” Maybe it’s because a lot of us are still getting used to the functionality of online platforms, but think bigger people!
5. Don’t make me look at other people
   Derek sent me a screenshot last week from a session he attended where one of the people watching spent the better part of the hour eating his lunch. Derek said it was a “big salad.” Presumably, not the famous “big salad” from Seinfeld, but it looked pretty hearty. One of my least favorite things about some of the current online platforms is having to watch people who aren’t among the presenters. It’s quite distracting. And I certainly don’t want people looking at me, although I know how to turn off my camera (I guess some people don’t). Figure out a way to disable this (note from Derek: Agreed. Massive Zoom calls with 400 people on camera are dumb. Thus ends my contributions to this blog post.)
6. The financial puzzle remains the big conundrum
   Then there is the big question, “Do live virtual events have staying power?” We’re not talking about CMEpalooza – we’re not going anywhere. It’s more about that 5,000 person multi-day conference or that 300-person satellite symposium or even that 25-person grand rounds. Remember that many of these surround hugely profitable events that drive the budget for lots of organizations. A 1-year blip is painful but likely not devastating. But can some organizations survive if this is a long-term shift? I honestly doubt it. Maybe the hybrid solution will become more popular – please God, don’t make that mean a simulcast of a 3-hour symposium with nothing more than a video feed – though I guess we’ll have to see what the market will bear.