According to a 2001 study by the Environmental Protection Agency, the average person attending a three-day conference accounts for 1400 pounds of greenhouse gases – equal to the amount of produced by a car driven for one year. A significant portion of this pollution stems from air travel. More and more companies are now beginning to realize both the high opportunity costs and the negative impact on the environment associated with live meetings when compared to the benefits of technologies, such as Web conferencing.

As a result of people taking advantage of our PresentME OnDemand Webcasting technologies, we estimate an carbon emissions reduction equal to taking 240 cars off the road for one year. Pretty amazing, isn’t?

Like millions of others new iPhone users, I feel the need to share my thoughts about this new tool. Two words: It Rocks.

The phone interface is amazing with the multi-touch screen and navigation. It took me about 30-minutes to activate my phone, convert all of my email and contacts from Entourage to Apple Mail and Address Book (those applications alone are worth switching), and synched up with Salesforce.com. Access to all of my critical information, contacts, photos, video, email, music, and, yes, podcasts all in one device…finally!

I know that my friends in pharmaceutical sales training industry claim that they are convinced that their trainees use their iPods for their music and not the podcasts downloaded from their training Website. While that may be true to some extent, I believe that these all-in-one devices will put an end to that as MP3 devices become less of recreation toy and more of business tool. Personally, I use my iPhone for podcasting everyday when I listen to numerous topical podcasts on technology, medicine, and elearning. Just connect my iPhone to my car stereo and go. Every night, I synch it up to iTunes and it removes podcasts that i have already reviewed and downloads new ones in about five minutes.

So if you can live with AT&T’s horrible data network, the iPhone is definitely worth checking out and, in my opinion, holds much promise for delivering effective elearning now and in the future.

We are pleased to launch our new corporate Website, www.dlc-solutions.com The new site showcases my company’s numerous elearning, PresentME Webcasting, and Website development solutions as well as our productions within continuing medical education, sales training, and consumer healthcare. Take a look and let me know what you think! Thanks.

Online case-based learning is a unique medium for learners to apply and reinforce their clinical knowledge to standardized patient scenarios. Often referred to as “virtual patient case studies,” online case-based learning encourages active problem solving by immersing the learner in a clinical decision process surrounding a specific issue or condition (e.g., staging of breast cancer). The learner is introduced to a simulated patient presenting with a unique history and then navigates through the case to gather additional information, determine a differential diagnosis, and make treatment decisions. Throughout this customizable, self-paced learning environment, the learner is provided with feedback based upon empirical guidelines and expert commentary. The inclusion of rich media, such as video, audio, and animations, enhances the training experience and appeals to different styles of learning.

Researchers have recently demonstrated that online case-based, continuing medical education programs achieved long-term improvements in clinical behaviors. In fact, a randomized, controlled study published in the Journal of Preventative Medicine ¹ found that physicians who completed a series of online CME case studies on domestic abuse achieved significant improvement in their knowledge and confidence over one year when compared to a control group. These findings are also consistent with a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association ² stating that, when designed correctly, online CME programs can achieve training outcomes comparable to live training sessions.

Keys to Successful Online Case-Based Learning

• Clear learning objectives
• Sound instructional design
• Evidence-based clinical decision trees
• Expert commentary and feedback
• Intuitive graphic design and navigation
• Highly-accessible technology
• Appropriate use of multimedia
• Measurable outcomes

At DLC Solutions, our Virtual Patient Case Studies combine expert content, sound instructional design, and multimedia to create a meaningful, engaging learning environment ideal for both medical professionals and biopharmaceutical sales representatives.
To learn more, visit: http://dlc-solutions.com/solutions/vcs.asp

References
Short L, Surprenant Z, Harris J. A community-based trial of online intimate partner violence CME Am J Prev Med. 2006;30(2):181-185.

Fordis M, et al. Comparison of the Instructional Efficacy of Internet-Based CME With Live Interactive CME Workshops. JAMA. 2005;294(9):1043-1051.