Whenever we do surveys of our audience regarding what topics they’d like to hear more about, outcomes are always at the top of the list. Derek and I have stopped trying to explain it – we just shrug our shoulders and say, “OK, looks like we’re going to plan another outcomes session this spring/fall.”

Let’s face it, for the non-statisticians in this world — and despite a semester of Statistics in grad school, I am most definitely one of you — a lot of the data and numbers crunched to make up CME/CE outcomes reports can give us a headache. I think I sorta, kinda understand P values by now (note from Derek: it’s “p-value”, Einstein) (note from Scott: the comma goes inside the quotation mark, Shakespeare), but once you start getting into things like confidence intervals, risk ratios, etc., my head starts to hurt.

Fortunately, there are a handful of very smart people in our industry who play the role of the aspirin in the medicine cabinet. You show them these weird numbers and they explain to you, in actual English sometimes, what they mean. As announced last week, I’ll be joined by several of these smart folks from Haymarket Medical Education and the National Association for Continuing Education next week for our special CMEpalooza Spotlight at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, December 9. We’ll be talking outcomes, and really not a lot about the specific nomenclature itself, but more about how to create value across the span of stakeholders with outcomes reports. What do supporters look for in outcomes reports? How can providers make sure their data is reliable? What do you do with all of the data you don’t use in your reports?

This is a free, 30-minute session that requires no registration, no credit card, no nothing. Just go to our LIVE page at the appointed time and tune in.

I never quite understood the concert encore. It’s just dumb.

The singer or band does their thing for a while and then everyone “pretends” that the concert is over. “Show’s over people. Heh heh heh.” Except that EVERYONE knows it’s a sham. The stage lights stay dark, the entire audience stays in its seats, and the band is backstage doing, well, I don’t know exactly what they are doing (I mean, I have a general idea, but we’re a PG rated event so let’s just play dumb, shall we?).

To me, it would make a lot more sense if the concert encore was reserved for something rare, something special. Instead of a “Here you go, you average schlub audience, we’ll accept your tepid applause and play three more songs, capping things off with our most recognizable hit,” maybe it happens 10% of the time. Someone on stage decides with 30 minutes left in the “main” part of the show whether there is going to be an encore or not. If there isn’t, they tack on 1 or 2 of the planned encore songs into the meat of the concert and then when they say “Good night everyone. We love you, Pittsburgh!” they really mean it. The audience isn’t shortchanged much on the actual material they are hearing, so it isn’t a big deal. But on those special nights where everything is clicking, the singer or band decides to truly play an encore. And that’s a night the audience will always remember. “Hey man, were you there that night in Peoria where .38 Special came back and played an extended, 20-minute version of Hold on Loosely during their encore? That was epic!”

There, fixed the concert industry. Well, assuming there is a concert industry still left to fix.

All of this is just a meandering segue to let the adoring fans of CMEpalooza know that we hear your applause after each of our live events. We know you are all standing on your chairs, banging on your pots and pans, chanting “We want more, we want more!” It’s nice, and we appreciate the kudos, but it’s never raucous enough for us to actually want to do anything about it.

Until now. 

Thanks to the kind folks at Haymarket Medical Education, there will indeed be a rare encore of CMEpalooza in 2020. We’re planning a special CMEpalooza Spotlight to be held from 11-11:30 am ET on Wednesday, December 9 ,where we’ll be talking about the topic of “Outcomes Assessment: Creating Value for All Stakeholders.” Outcomes is always one of the big topics in our world, and this session will shine some light onto ways that providers of all types can assess their outcomes processes to ensure that they are reporting out information that is truly of value to various stakeholder types.

If you are not familiar with our CMEpalooza Spotlights, these are special events occasionally held outside of our main broadcast days. We did one in the spring with our friends at Educational Measures (that one was a pre-show encore a week before CMEpalooza Spring) and are now back for an actual encore this time around. You get to see me moderate a session — thrilling I know — instead of just suffering through one of my usual production gaffes. 

Just like our main CMEpalooza broadcasts, you’ll be able to tune in on our LIVE page and do all of the things you are used to doing in the era of all-online, all-the-time education (ie, ask questions, answer a poll question or two, check to make sure you aren’t wearing the same sweatpants for the 5th day in a row, etc.). 

So set aside some time in your busy calendar to join us, It goes without saying that this is free and doesn’t require pre-registration – c’mon, you all know the drill by now. Just don’t ask me to sing “Caught Up in You.” That would definitely NOT deserve an encore.

 

To watch, go here: https://cmepalooza.com/live/

For the agenda, go here: https://cmepalooza.com/fall-2020