Executive Summary

University Hospitals held their 14th Annual Cardiovascular Disease Update in order to provide physicians with continuing medical education credits. Whova’s online event management platform assisted the organizer, Katherine Forrest, in engaging attendees and distributing training credits successfully at the virtual conference.

Interview with the Organizers

About University Hospitals

University Hospitals is a world-renowned hospital founded during 1866 in Cleveland, Ohio. According to the US News and World Reports best hospital rankings, the hospital is ranked second in Cleveland and third in the state of Ohio. Their annual training conference is dedicated to advancing and educating physicians in the care of patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Using many of Whova’s online features, physicians and health care providers in attendance were able to successfully learn and network in their field. 

Challenges

• Track attendance for continuing medical education credits

The organizer needed to easily track attendance records in order to distribute the continuing medical education credits (CME) to healthcare providers at the event.

• Keep engagement high during pre-recorded sessions

Because the majority of sessions were pre-recorded to avoid technical difficulties, Forrest needed a platform where attendees could ask questions like they would during a live session.

• Communicate with attendees before, during and after the event

The event organizer needed an easy way to contact attendees with important notifications during all points of the event.

• Encourage attendee networking 

Forrest wanted to ensure that the many prominent physicians and healthcare providers in attendance had opportunities to network and exchange tips in their field.

Solutions

• Streamline credit distribution with Whova’s automatic attendance system

The organizers took advantage of Whova’s session records to award attendees their training credits.

Whova’s system automatically records when attendees enter a session and then compiles their information into a list. Whova also tracks how long attendees remained in the sessions so organizers can make sure they actually deserve the credit. Forrest simply downloaded the attendee lists, complete with names and emails, and easily allocated CME credits. 

The organizer could view information on attendee activity and session streaming time

• Utilize Whova’s Q&A feature for pre-recorded presentations

Forrest utilized Whova’s Q&A feature in order to actively engage attendees in between pre-recorded sessions. She created dedicated Q&A sub-sessions after each recorded presentation, where attendees could post and view questions on the virtual forum with ease. From there, speakers could quickly answer questions through the chat or live video. 

To increase engagement on the Q&A, attendees were encouraged to like their favorite questions. The most liked questions automatically moved to the highest priority on the list. 

The organizer created Q&A sessions after each speaker presentation

• Communicate with attendees through announcements and polls

Forrest was able to easily update attendees with Whova’s announcement feature before, during and after the event. Prior to the event, she motivated attendees to visit sponsor booths and get excited about the conference. During the event, she utilized the feature to encourage attendees to join contests or let them know about any changes.

The organizers kept the Whova app open for 3 months after the event ended so they could easily contact attendees with reminders and post-event information. Besides that, attendees were able to review the documents and videos kept on the app. 

To save time, the organizers set up polls before the event started so they wouldn’t have to waste time during the event. The polls automatically went live during the sessions or times they were set for. 

• Facilitate networking with contests on Whova’s Community Board

Forrest enabled the Community Leaderboard Contest on Whova’s app to encourage friendly competition. The attendees earned points by simply posting and interacting on the Community Board. The top three participants with the most points were awarded a prize. 

Attendees were ranked on the leaderboard based on their participation points

Whova’s Community Board is a virtual space where attendees can participate in discussion, meetups and view organizer announcements. The attendees posted many discussions about professional topics in healthcare along with fun ice-breakers intended to get to know eachother better. Besides that, organizers and attendees also post valuable job openings through the discussion board. 

Because the event was virtual, many attendees also took advantage of Whova’s meetup feature to set up Zoom meetings with fellow attendees. They could also directly message one another to spark a conversation.