ZEST insights

Unless there are any surprise last-minute announcements when the RACGP officially unveils its vision for the 2008–2010 triennium it’s probably fair to say there’s nothing controversial about their revamped framework.

As Linda states in her recent post, the gist of it is that they have put their heads together and identified the main reason for making continuing education for doctors compulsory – namely better outcomes for patients (you can’t fault the logic). To achieve this they’ve loaded more points into the more rigorous category 1 activities, which encourage doctors to consider their own clinical practice in depth and – hopefully – make changes for the better.

Now worth 40 points this emphasis on category 1 activities seems set to get the thumbs up from GPs – but if this means less interest in lowly category 2 activities like dinner meetings will there be fewer opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to support GP education? And will the “better” doctors opt to get their points through category 1 with category 2 meetings becoming predominantly the domain of the knife and fork brigade?

While time will tell, I think these changes actually create more opportunity for pharma to support educational activities. All the old activities are there but now we see some new additions, notably the EBM Journal Clubs, which have to be an excellent way for company representatives to build relationships with their doctors by helping them out with their meeting logistics.

I strongly believe excellent category 2 events will still be well attended. At an educational meeting I attended last weekend the GPs I spoke with acknowledged that there was a great deal of competition for their time, most saying they had a choice of several CPD meeting invites each week. But they asserted that “hooks” like the venue and even points were secondary to the quality and content of the meeting. “They would say that!” you could argue, but the sentiment seemed genuine. So I think what is true in this current triennium will be true in the next: If your educational activity is interesting enough and of a high quality they will come.

The new RACGP QA&CPD triennium has been designed to elevate the importance of active learning and quality improvement outcomes in the education program, and this will affect how activities are structured from next year.  

Major program changes include the increased emphasis on Category 1 activities, which will now attract 40 CPD points per event, and the mandatory inclusion of patient safety outcome objectives into all educational events.  Two new Category 1 activities have been introduced into the program - the Rapid PDSA cycles and EBM Journal clubs – increasing opportunities to deliver engaging educational programs to GPs. In addition, all GPs must undertake a CPR course during the new triennium. 

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