Related Experiment Videos
Commitment to change: a strategy for promoting educational effectiveness
1Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah School of Medicine, 50 North Medical Drive, Suite 2A 100, Salt Lake City, UT 84132-1100.
Summary
Committing to practice changes after continuing medical education (CME) courses significantly boosts behavioral outcomes. This strategy effectively stimulates and documents changes, even with limited time for implementation.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education Research
- Behavioral Science in Healthcare
Background:
- Lecture-based continuing medical education (CME) courses are common but often fail to drive practice changes.
- This study explores the 'commitment to change' strategy to enhance CME effectiveness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effectiveness of a commitment to change strategy in stimulating behavioral changes following a lecture-based CME course.
- To identify factors influencing the adoption of practice changes.
Main Methods:
- Attendees of a 3-day lecture-based course voluntarily committed to implementing practice changes.
- Participants were surveyed one month post-conference to assess change accomplishment.
Main Results:
- Over half (54%) of intended practice changes were accomplished within one month.
- No correlation was found between post-lecture evaluation scores and the number of committed changes.
- Professionals with greater autonomy showed differential participation rates.
Conclusions:
- The commitment to change strategy shows significant potential for stimulating and documenting behavioral outcomes in CME.
- Insufficient time was a primary barrier to change implementation.
- Future CME design should consider incorporating commitment strategies to improve practice transformation.