Attend the Annual Conference Sessions Now (with the Help of Technology)


Pat Stricker, RN, M EdPat Stricker, RN, M Ed
Senior Vice President
TCS Healthcare Technologies

Twenty years ago would you have thought that you could "attend a conference" from the comfort of your "easy chair" or backyard patio? Well, today you can!

We all need continuing education credits to maintain our licenses and accreditations, or just to keep up-to-date with the advances in our field. Individual courses are offered online or through journals, but it takes time and coordination to find them and make sure they contain the content we are looking for.

Going to a conference, like the CMSA Annual Conference, is the best way to get a lot of specific, industry-related, up-to-date courses and CE credits all in one place in a short time period. However with the cost of travel and time away from work and the family, attending conferences is not always an option.

But don’t worry. Technology can help you "attend" the 2011 Annual Conference and Expo that was held in San Antonio in June. The only thing you need is a web browser!

CMSA recorded the sessions and will soon be offering those recordings and corresponding slides to you. You can review the objectives and overview of the session and even listen to a preview of the session itself to help you decide if you want to "attend" all the sessions or just specific ones that are of special interest to you. And you can "attend" the sessions at your convenience – anywhere and anytime. How much easier could it be?

Of course it isn’t exactly "like being there." You do miss out on the networking, fun events, the vendor Expo, and maybe some "night life" (technology does have it’s limits) – but you can still obtain the knowledge and CE credits.

It’s even a benefit to those of us who attended the conference. There are so many great presentations, but because of scheduling, we missed some of them. Or we heard how "great" a presentation was afterwards, but we missed it. Now, we can "attend" those too.

So watch for CMSA’s announcement about the Extended Learning Opportunities and "attend the conference." Isn’t technology amazing? I love it!