Continuing education needs assessment and program development: an alternative approach

Continuing education has become increasingly important to the professions, including dietetics. There is some concern, however, that continuing education programs too seldom focus on practice-related problems and do not have a large enough impact on daily practice. A research and development endeavor is in progress to create an alternative approach to continuing education programming. Utilizing a process called the Practice Audit Model, this approach brings practitioners (or their representatives) and educators together to develop continuing education programs that focus on learning needs identified through an empirical assessment of practitioner performance.