Web 2.0 Concepts at the American Gastroenterological

Association (AGA) Institute

Charles E. Willis

VP, Education and Training

AGA Institute

Tasks for Lifelong Learning (LL) Initiative

• Provide AGA members with an online education home (a personal learning portfolio or PLP).

• Make the AGA Institute web presence more “member centric,” build access around what members search for.

• Redeploying the AGA Institute’s signature self-assessment product as a series of online modules.

• Initiate a process by which all AGA Institute educational offerings are developed with digital capture and delivery in mind at the outset (online education editor).

Personal Learning Portfolio

• Track their CME credits (AGA Institute as well as external)

• Check these credits against state licensure requirements

• Track their accumulation of ABIM Maintenance of Certification points

[Housekeeping, but important]

Personal Learning Portfolio

• Track progress toward individual learning goals

• Capture data for practice improvement modules (PIMs)

• Repository for reportable performance measurement data (the 2007 Medicare pilot project)

• Connect with member driven online discussion forums

• Data reported at the member’s direction (trusted agent)

[the new wave]

New search capabilities

• Members enter the website through the PLP to search for content specific to their questions

• Adaptively track what members find most useful (frequency of visits, evaluations)

• Shift ranking in future searches based on data

• Capture the inquiries and sources consulted for the member’s PLP

• Very simple

Online self-assessment modules

• Still feature didactic education, but members enter the material through questions

• Incorporate greatly expanded graphics capabilities

• Linked to AGA Institute and external content (PubMed, etc.)

• Tap into member discussion forums (moribund now)

• Modules can be revised as dictated by changes in the science or member feedback (think Google, not Windows)

Online Education Editor

• Routine, prospective planning for web delivery of AGA Institute educational content

• Support the AGA Institute pharma funding model with targeted suggestions on new platforms & commercially viable content

• Consult with other editors, marketing and communications regarding online presentation of our content (organization-wide impact)

• Conduct semi-annual environmental scan

• Assistance vetting of software vendors and developing RFPs

OLD WAY (actual experiment)

• Member, “I think I’d like to know more about 5-HT agonists for IBS.”

• Goes to www.gastro.org and search for “IBS.”

• Thirty-four links with brief descriptions appear. He has time to read the first four and selects the third one (99% relevance) that begins with “Can medicines relieve IBS symptoms?”

• Reads for 3 minutes before realizing this is a patient education module.

• Back to page of links, a lot of bacterial overgrowth modules and references to live events, to a slide set, research opportunities and more patient education. He finds a CME Café module but it’s from 2004. Despite this he tries to launch the multimedia but it doesn’t work on a Macintosh. Experiment failed.

NEW WAY (all technically possible)

• Member goes to www.gastro.org and clicks her PLP• Based on her personal learning profile and portfolio of previous

activities (live and online), Question of the Day is, “In patients with IBS which symptoms are improved by 5-HT4 agonists…(multiple choices)?”

• She gets 3 of the 4 possible correct responses, missing “bloating.” A article (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/542947?src=mp) is recommended along with three pathophysiology slides from the IBS GTP set.

• After reading the article a virtual patient case tests her clinical skills. During the case she reads comments from practitioners with similar practice patterns. She debates dosing with other members who are online at the same time.

• She performs well on the case and is deemed competent. Offered both CME credits and ABIM MoC points, she takes both. Her personal learning portfolio is updated with this new competency.