become the generic distributor of accredited online CME content in developing countries;
CMEPEDIA aims to provide access to accredited online CME free or at an affordable rate;
expose all medical professionals to knowledge of a similar standard regardless of their location;
reduce the loss of clinical time spent on CME.
Let us consider an example. Indian physicians need to obtain 30 CME credits every 5 years (6 credits every year). Physicians need to be physically present at a live event to gain these credits. The average travel time to attend a live event based on the weighted average of urban and rural travel time is 2.85 hours. The study time required to gain one CME credit is 4 hours, therefore the total time required for 1 credit is (2.85 + 4 = 6.85) hours. In order to expose each of the 1.0 million physicians in India to 1 credit hour of CME, there will be a loss of approximately 6.1 million clinical hours (Table 1).
| Time required for all Indian doctors to earn 1 CME credit | |
|---|---|
| Number of Indian physicians (as on 31 December 2016 as per Medical Council of India records) | 10,12,428, i.e. approx. 1.0 million |
| Study time required to earn 1 credit through a live event | 4 hours |
| Average travel time to CME venue | 2.85 hours |
| Time required per doctor to earn 1 CME credit hour | 6.85 hours |
| Time required for all registered doctors to earn 1 CME credit hour with live event | [6.85 * 1.0 million] = 6.85 million hours |
Table 1
As per MCI guidelines, attendance of 4 hours at a conference entitles a doctor to 1 CME credit (MCI-Academics/2013/30661 dt 29 August 2013).
The travel time of 2.85 hours is arrived at by calculating the weighted average of travel time by rural and urban doctors, considering a minimum travel of 12 hours per day for rural doctors and 3 hours per day for urban doctors. Urban : rural distribution is taken as approximately 30 : 70.
This translates to each physician requiring 41.1 hours per year (Table 2) to earn his/her 6 annual credits through live events. In a workforce of around 1.0 million) physicians, this leads to a loss of over 41.1 million clinical hours per year (1.0 million x 41.1).
If CMEs in India could be conducted solely online, the yearly burden on physicians would be reduced to 6 hours per year, which would mean that 35.1 clinical hours would remain available for clinical practice (Table 2) every 5 years per physician.
| Time saved per doctor by 100% adoption of online CME Clinical time spent in earning CME credits through live events | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Participant time or clinical time spent (hours) | Study Time | Travel Time | Total Time |
| Per doctor to earn 1 CME credit hour | 4 | 2.85 | 6.85 |
| Per doctor per year (time required for 1 credit x 6) | 24 | 17.1 | 41.10 |
| Per doctor in 5 years (time required for 1 credit x 30) | 120 | 85.5 | 205.50 |
| Clinical time spent in earning CME credits through online events | |||
| Per doctor to earn 1 CME credit hour | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Per doctor per year (time required for 1 credit x 6) | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| Per doctor in 5 years (time required for 1 credit x 30) | 30 | 0 | 30 |
Table 2