When preparing to host a Continuing Medical Education (CME) conference, a great deal of time, money and effort is invested to ensure that information will be fully absorbed and applied by those in attendance. An audience response system is a proven tool to increase attentiveness and allow attendees to share real world experiences with their peers at a CME event, thus maximizing the meeting's effectiveness. Multiple studies have consistently shown that people like using audience response systems. Working with Option Technologies Interactive as your ARS provider can make implementation of the tool at your meeting easier and more cost effective.
Why OTI?
OTI offers turnkey rentals that enable you to rent the software and hardware necessary, as well as have one or many of our highly experienced professionals implement and seamlessly coordinate all of the interactive aspects of your CME conference. This enables presenters to focus on simply getting the information across effectively to your audience instead of having to deal with any technical difficulties or headaches that you might encounter. A study conducted by The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine found that speakers rated the ease of use of an ARS system highly at 4.58 (out of a scale of 1 to 5, with results closest to 5 being most positive).
In order to avoid any technical difficulties and headaches that might be encountered, OTI's staff are certified PowerPoint experts, seasoned in project management, have knowledge of medical terminology, and are able to meet the demands of multiple presentation and subject matter experts. OTI's staff is used to handling last minute changes and versions for multiple presentations to ensure that every event runs smoothly.
More Effective and Timely Presentations
With the ability to only attend regional or national meetings occasionally, busy physicians rely on easy-to-access local presentations and lectures. When determining CME strategies, it is extremely important to maximize the small amount of time devoted by practicing physicians. Upon entering the room, attendees complete a needs assessment to determine which concepts need to be focused on. An example of a needs assessment would be a panel discussion which ranks topics based on their importance to the audience. This enables the presenter to determine which concepts were learned and ready to move forward from and which need to be retaught.
Attendance Tracking
If you need to track attendants for CME credits, OTI offers a proven approach. OTI’s OptionPower Software will engage your audience by allowing them to actively participate during the presentation via OptionFinder wireless keypads. When attendants first arrive at the CME conference, they will walk up to an OTI “Welcome Station” to sign in. This will allow us to attach an assigned keypad to their name on the roster in order to track their participation/completion, sessions attended, and results for continuing education credit purposes.
Pre and Post Testing
During your interactive presentation for Continuing Medical Education, OptionPower will enable you to pretest staff and doctors’ knowledge base, assess comprehension, post-test retention and measure the impact of the presentation. Overall, you should see an increase in attentiveness, participation, retention, the learning curve and program efficiency.
Using an ARS allows for immediate application of material, which enhances long-term retention. Audience Response Systems also improve attention rates and give instant feedback to learners about their performance as well as to lecturers regarding audience knowledge levels in order to tailor learning material accordingly. In order to prove that learning has occurred, a Level 2 Assessment is used, which tests the knowledge transfer to see what attendants have learned and absorbed. Level 1 Assessments, also known as "smile sheets," can be taken to measure the reactions to the program in order to increase effectiveness in the future.
Interested in using OTI for your next medical education conference or meeting? For more information on our turnkey rentals please contact us at 407-872-3333 or visit www.optiontechnologies.com.
