ACEhp CPD Pulse Points July/August 2021 Edition: Backwards Planning

In April 2020, the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEhp) began a weekly series of webinars called "CPD Pulse Points." In each session, Chitra Subramanian, former ACEhp president, has a conversation with a guest about a topic relevant to health care continuing professional development (CPD) today. Access is free for ACEhp members. Nonmembers can attend the live sessions or purchase a recording for $5. Each session is recorded and made available for learners who are unable to attend the live meeting, so if any of the sessions sound interesting to you, they are available for viewing in full.

The CPD Pulse Points sessions in July and August 2021 include a two-part series focused on backwards planning. It is not uncommon for the planning process to start with an objective. While objectives are necessary, they do not identify the root causes or practice gaps. A backwards planning process fills in the missing details that are required not only for accreditation, but for the creation of effective educational interventions.

Key Takeaways:

1. Ask your content experts questions. Ask for more information. Ask why, and then ask why again. They likely know the answers even if the conversation might not start with the answers you need.

2. Guide the conversation with your content experts. Educational interventions should be about more than knowledge. They should focus on competency, skills, and strategies. Your content experts are likely aware of educational needs that address skills or strategies, but they may need the right question to shift their focus away from a knowledge topic.

3. Use the information you've gathered to focus your target audience.

4. Review that starting objective or objectives. Are they measurable? How can they be refined?

5. Work with your content experts to design an activity that is interactive and focused. Create supplemental materials as a home for those pieces of information that don't fit into the presentation but that your content experts also don't want to let go of.

Image credit: Arm Okay. Licensed under CC BY 3.0