Continued medical education provided by medical journals: the "red journal's" experience

A mailed survey to our readership expressed an interest in providing journal CME. In January 2006, following an assessment of the readership's educational needs and the development of educational objectives to span a 12-month program, two articles per issue were provided to participants to gain category 1 credit free of charge.

Participants completed a mandatory electronic evaluation after each CME activity that they had completed. These prospective data were collected to determine participant demographics, satisfaction, and outcome results.

A total of 1,329 CME credits were provided during the 2006 volume year. Ninety-one percent of these participants were in private practice, 98% of the participants indicated a good to excellent overall satisfaction with the CME activity, 97% indicated their experience was good to excellent compared to other journals that they had participated for CME credit, and 97% of the participants indicated that they thought the CME activity increased their knowledge and/or skills related to patient care.

The results of our 1-yr outcome analysis indicate that there is a need for continued journal-based CME and that our participants are very satisfied with the process. This CME activity format also appears to have improved the participants' knowledge and their delivery of patient care.