Revisiting the Basics and Unlocking Significance: Knowledge Acquisition Also Results in Significant Clinical Outcomes if Grounded in Decision Science (Level 3)

Session Description: Learning is a science, and Continuing Education (CE) is a scientific way to navigate lifelong learning toward fundamental moments of a clinical decision. As with any science, ongoing evidence-based research, even when replicated from previous studies, is pivotal to preserve the scientific merit of CE. Knowledge is expanding faster than our ability to use it, especially in the digital domain. Yet many of our stakeholders continue to debate the advantages of supporting and providing CE, leading our community to seek increasingly complex models that may not actually be aligned to gaps and needs. Knowledge, if acquired faster, better, and smarter, can lead to meaningful clinical change. Therefore, we considered it important to reexamine the impact of the frequently underestimated basics while assessing intersections of Level 3 knowledge outcomes with practice and process changes as well as actual documented safer care. This presentation, followed by a panel, will discuss a 2022 research study published in the Almanac in February 2023, that demonstrated statistically significant correlations of knowledge improvement CE with real-world specific practice changes. We will address the key reasons that led us toward taking an investigatory and analytic approach to CE, the positive difference this approach made for stakeholders, how the results continue to contribute toward the current inventory of literature, and the lessons we learned including how even foundational CE can be structured in clinical reasoning and decisive actions. We consider it our responsibility to openly discuss this information so that each member of our community can personalize the facts and perspectives that most strongly resonate with them. This will allow us to collectively continue to elevate the impact of learning and ensure the science of CE thrives.

Learning Objectives:

• Review the scope, depth, and importance of why utilizing the results of recent research could significantly elevate the science of CE
• Discuss how scientifically applied faster, better, and smarter knowledge improvement can lead to awareness, predicted and controlled practice change
• Demonstrate how the principles of behavioral sciences are connected to the provision of patient care, establishing real world examples that assist all clinical and business stakeholders to appreciate CE as a vehicle for meeting imperatives