In 2023, we embarked on a mission to democratize access to accredited healthcare content in developing countries. Engaging with international content providers, we advocated for a shift in business models—suggesting the sale of modules instead of subscriptions, making education more accessible.
While encountering challenges such as high production costs and accreditation concerns among providers, we realized an opportunity. We decided to venture into content production ourselves. This strategic move enabled us to not only reduce costs but also align with international accreditation standards. Our goal is to demonstrate the viability of selling per module.
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Emma Van Hoecke"Doing good is just not good enough. It needs to be done better.". Emma is a consultant psychiatrist with over 25 years of clinical experience in five different countries across 3 continents. She was trained at NIMHANS hospital (link to website NIMHANS), Bangalore, in 1999 and has lived in India since 2012. She practices psychiatry in the Netherlands. She learned to appreciate accredited CME in the Netherlands and noticed a gap in this provision in India. She dedicated most of her free time in the past 8 years to the development of CMEPEDIA and ACCRECENT. She funded these projects with the profit of her private practice. |
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Ruman Mustak"What is now proved was once only imagined" Ruman Mustak, with over 7 years of experience in educational technology and healthcare, feels perfectly at home with CMEPEDIA and Accrecent—organisations driven by a social vision. A proud list-maker and planner, she thrives on streamlining processes while fostering a supportive and motivated team environment. She is dedicated to creating an impact in healthcare education while ensuring the journey is as rewarding as the destination. |
1. Purpose
ACCRECENT aims to reduce financial barriers to learning by providing healthcare professionals with free or affordable continuing medical education activities. The design of these activities aims to refresh essential knowledge and concentrate on advances in medicine, technology, research, and changes in the healthcare environment.
2. Vision:
ACCRECENT provides high-quality, unbiased, evidence-based, and learner-driven education and advocacy in support of safe, equitable, and effective patient care. We meticulously analyse the behaviour of adult learners, ensuring our educational initiatives are finely attuned to their needs and preferences. Our dedication to being data-driven empowers us to provide unparalleled support in pursuing optimal healthcare outcomes.
3. Content areas
The comprehensive content provided to our target audience in developing nations covers a broad spectrum of primary and specialised healthcare topics. These include conventional areas within patient care, basic science, clinical healthcare, public health, and contemporary themes like enhancing quality, prioritising patient-centric approaches, fostering leadership, and promoting innovation. These aspects are aligned with key professional competencies such as:
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Patient care
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Knowledge
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Practice-based learning and improvement
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Ethics and professionalism
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Systems-based medicine
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Interpersonal and communication skills
4. Target audience:
Our focus is catering to healthcare professionals in developing countries needing licensing, such as physicians, nurses, dentists, and those in training. Our services also extend to healthcare professionals who do not currently need licensing and laypersons.
5. Types of activities:
ACCRECENT offers a variety of formats for continuing medical education activities, such as webinars and internet enduring materials.
6. Expected result:
Expected outcomes encompass enhancing healthcare professional performance, competency and optimal patient outcomes. Assessment of results or learning outcomes occurs immediately after the courses conclude, involving post-assessment tests and feedback from participant evaluations. These evaluations inquire about the relevance of the course content to their professional scope, commitment to implementing changes, and strategies aimed at integrating the content into clinical practices to enhance patient outcomes. Learners' indications regarding their weekly patient caseload enable forecasting the potential positive impacts of practice modifications on patients.
We intend to conduct a follow-up refresher course in a micro-learning format, scheduled 3-6 months after the initial course. Insights from these sessions enable us to gauge the shifts in knowledge assimilation, perceptions, proficiencies, and behavioural changes/clinical methodologies in line with the session's content and learning objectives.
Additionally, this data aids in identifying impediments to implementation, contributing to the continuous enhancement of the quality of our Continuing Education Program.
ACCRECENT is an impact-driven social venture that strives to produce internationally accredited healthcare education at a low cost. We aim to improve the visibility of authors in developing countries as they are not required to pay to distribute content via our platform, www.cmepedia.com, but will be paid instead.
ACCRECENT is an in-house content provider of CMEPEDIA. Our primary revenue stream is generated by the subscriptions of Indian healthcare professionals who want to re-license paperless. The content production cost is covered by unrestricted grants, our CME funds or paid content.
ACCRECENT is a social venture, a sustainable enterprise or a fair trade corporation. Combining business and fair trade is the best way to generate a positive impact. We are committed to harnessing the power of business for social good. Our business model allows us to have the most significant impact and be a major player in the future of education in healthcare for developing countries.
