Physicians who’ve attended your sessions tell you that they didn’t hear solutions to the clinical problems they face. Because they can pick up CME credit almost anywhere, they tell you that what they really want from your sessions are solutions to problems they confront — and often these are not the same problems or theoretical issues program speakers discuss. The problem: How to make instructional content relevant — and compelling — to physicians.

You suspect that more effective educational approaches are out there, but you’re not certain what they are or which ones are worth the required investment. Because CME programs are in and of themselves an investment, the time and energy you put into identifying and implementing new approaches must ultimately pay dividends in terms of changed physician behavior and improved patient outcomes. The problem: How to identify and evaluate instructional activities.

Accreditation bodies and funding organizations with which you’ve been working doubt that doctors attending your sessions are coming away with anything more than CME credit. They’re asking you to document the learning realized at your programs. What’s more, they want the evidence to be quantitative as well as qualitative, rigorously collected, and properly analyzed. The problem: How to document change in the learners based on each of your instructional interventions.