Flexible education for time-poor GPs

According to the RACGP’s latest General Practice: Health of the Nation report GPs in Australia are under extreme pressure in their roles, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent natural disasters. Despite this challenge, they are still required to achieve a minimum CPD (Continual Professional Development) requirement , which was set at 130 points last year.

As Australia’s top private provider of face-to-face and online CPD education for primary care, Reed Medical Education is always looking to reflect the changing healthcare landscape, and to meet the needs of our customers in the medium they prefer.

Four times a year, in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane, General Practice Conference and Exhibition (GPCE) provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ for GPS to learn and earn their CPD requirements, whilst discovering the latest medical innovations and networking with their peers.

While the GPCE program is carefully designed to give GPs access to as much of their requirement as possible across a single weekend, we recognised the need for a more flexible learning approach. So, in 2022 we introduced our new QI Advanced Course – an innovative blend of online modules and in-person workshops that allows GPs to learn at their own pace while still receiving the hands-on training they need at the GPCE conference of their choice.

GPs taking the new blended courses engage in three hours of practical, face-to-face group learning at a GPCE conference, followed by two hours of education online. Built in house by Reed Medical Education, these online modules are designed to be interactive and engaging, using videos, quizzes, and case studies to ensure that GPs can easily understand and apply the material. 

The QI Advanced Course has been very well received by GPs and has helped many of them to reach their 2022 requirement of 130 CPD points. 1,014 GPs took the opportunity to complete a QI advanced Course in 2022, including 500 GPs on the contemporary management of type 2 diabetes and 259 on prescribing medical cannabis in Australia. 

Reflecting on the overall experience one delegate said: “this whole session and two weeks of post-session usage was a complete revelation to me.” 

Agile event planning with WhatsApp

Brazilians are amongst the world’s most prolific users of social media. Having noticed a preference for communicating via WhatsApp amongst some exhibitors, which has only strengthened since the pandemic, our Brazilian ops team saw the opportunity to create a dedicated exhibitor WhatsApp group for each event to smooth the path to exhibiting and enhance the exhibitor experience.

In the run up to every RX event, our operations teams regularly reach out to exhibitors and contractors to help them with their preparations; but, with customers regularly travelling or in meetings, making contact can be difficult. This can result in missed deadlines which negatively impact their show experience. WhatsApp offered a simple, digital solution that could be easily replicated and implemented at zero cost.

Reliable, agile, and friendly in tone, Exhibitor WhatsApp Groups ensure a much greater number of exhibitors receive the information and reminders they need, quickly and directly, so that they can complete their planning on time. It also provides a dedicated channel for contractors, ensuring better and more timely access to venues, while building trust in the information and guidelines provided.

Across the seven Brazilian events which used the channel in 2022, there was an average increase of 18% in the number of exhibitors who submitted their documentation without delay, compared to 2019 and 2021. For Fenatran, the increase was 38%. In addition, more than 92% of exhibitors and 70% of contractors arrived on site fully accredited, eliminating queues for entry. Exhibitor WhatsApp Groups have now been extended to all RX Brazil events in 2023.

Commenting on their experience of the Feicon Exhibitor WhatsApp Group, one customer posted: “It is always a pleasure to be in contact with you at RX, the preparation with your organizing company makes my work much more relaxed and agile, so we can enjoy all the advantages of using the resources and tools for digital promotion. Big hug and fun week!!” 

Game-changing conference delivery

Every year, RX events deliver robust conference programmes serving thousands of delegates; but the task of securing proposals from speakers, gathering the content, and communicating programme details to attendees can be complex and time consuming.

When our US team were challenged with hosting over 200 paid conference sessions and panels at the ITS World Congress in Los Angeles in September 2022, they turned to an automated conference platform for a more effective solution. It proved a game-changer, providing a more efficient, accurate, and engaging experience for all our stakeholders and attendees.

By integrating the conference platform with RX’s global business systems and event websites, collecting and aggregating information such as calls for papers, session descriptions, speaker biographies, presentation materials could be achieved through a self-service model (with our customer service team on hand to assist), instead of our US team having to manually solicit all these details. This saved hundreds of labour hours for all involved and reduced the risk of human error. For perspective, ITS World Congress 2022 had over 450 submissions from potential conference speakers that would have had to been difficult to manage manually. 

Automating the conference process helped us to deliver an unforgettable education for a record number of over 6,000 registered attendees who came to discuss the priority issues around transportation. So much so that, following the success of the 2022 ITS World Congress, almost all our 2023 US events with paid conference components will be using the new automated platform, improving the overall experience for all involved.

Reflecting on the event, Laura Chace, President and CEO, ITS America said: "Great job from the whole RX team to make this week a success. I have heard only positive comments from attendees and exhibitors.  Quality of attendees, quality of business conversations and partnerships, and the quality of our educational sessions have been mentioned over and over. Thank you for pushing so hard to make this a great event."