Thursday, January 9, 2025

Expanding Perspectives: Day 1 at #Alliance25

By: Almanac Volunteers and Staff

Welcome to the Alliance 2025 Annual Conference! On Thursday, Jan. 9, hundreds of healthcare CPD professionals gathered in Orlando, Florida, to expand their perspectives and inspire and get inspired about new possibilities.

The sunny energy kicked off Wednesday at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center, where we participated in pre-conference sessions, celebrated distinguished awardees and gathered for a welcome reception. On Thursday, the education officially began. Read on for today’s recap:

Artificial Intelligence or Aggregated Inequity: Keynote Reflections

After the Annual Business Meeting, Imanni Sheppard, PhD, took the stage to present the keynote, “Artificial Intelligence or Aggregated Inequity: A Critical, Sociomedical Appraisal of Technological ‘Progress’ in Medicine”. This session reviewed the intersection of the history of medicine with contemporary medical inequities; examined the nexus of emerging medical technologies with health disparities and medical inequities; and nuanced the normalization of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

The Almanac Editorial Board on-the-ground reporters reflected on the keynote.

It cannot be said enough ... Limited memory (Gen AI, Large Language Models, i.e., ChatGPT) models are created with human input and limited to the information provided or by the input provided during the ask or prompt. They generate at a faster pace but still have the "garbage in, garbage out" principle applied.
In medicine, historical and scientific board and marginalization still impact today's practices and is further propagated by the user of AI (LLM) that pulls from this information.
When using AI, ask yourself: “Is it equitable?” Think from an outcomes, founding principles and application perspective, and think across critical social delineations.

Dr. Sheppard noted that medical providers are trained to be objective, but in reality, biases and stereotypes sometimes win out — whether AI is used or not. She also shared that healthcare education professionals who do not have a strong medical background may benefit from taking a qualitative research methodologies course, reminding them of the importance learning and listening to body language.

Concurrent Session Key Takeaways

Review some quick hits from today’s sets of concurrent sessions:

Going from an identified practice gap to a change in performance is not triggered necessarily from one CE event/activity, but through a continuum of learning and types of activities that move learners through a pre-contemplative, and contemplative, preparation, active learning to maintenance and can be overlayed with the measures of confidence in association with the above stages of change. (Let's Evolve the Outcomes Pyramid with Professor Moore!, Katie S. Lucero, PhD, MS; Don Moore, PhD; Wendy Cerenzia, MS; Sue L. McGuinness, PhD, CHCP)
Reinforcement boosts confidence and self-efficacy, which leads to increased practice changes. (Let's Evolve the Outcomes Pyramid with Professor Moore!, Katie S. Lucero, PhD, MS; Don Moore, PhD; Wendy Cerenzia, MS; Sue L. McGuinness, PhD, CHCP)
Real world application is required for real leading. (Let's Evolve the Outcomes Pyramid with Professor Moore!, Katie S. Lucero, PhD, MS; Don Moore, PhD; Wendy Cerenzia, MS; Sue L. McGuinness, PhD, CHCP)
Do you have an incidental mentor? You likely do, even if you do not explicitly know it. In his lecture, Frances M. Maitland Award Winner Lawrence Sherman, FACEHP, FRSM, CHCP, shared that Maitland herself is an incidental mentor — attendees may not know her, but they feel her impact. (Celebrating Mentorship & The Frances Maitland Award Lecture, Lawrence Sherman, FACEHP, FRSM, CHCP)
Mentors … the people who take an interest in us and make a difference. We all owe them a “thank you” for where we are. A great mentor is a learning facilitator teaching the learner what they need to know. (Celebrating Mentorship & The Frances Maitland Award Lecture, Lawrence Sherman, FACEHP, FRSM, CHCP)
Mentoring is a two-way street — which you can read more about in this Almanac article, “The Mentor Becomes the Mentee”. (Celebrating Mentorship & The Frances Maitland Award Lecture, Lawrence Sherman, FACEHP, FRSM, CHCP)

“It is nice to make a living, but it's better to make a difference.”

Live From Orlando

#Alliance25 participants and awardees have a lot to say about their conference experience, their Alliance membership, their certification and more. Here are the highlights from our conversations with attendees:

As CHCP goes, my organization paid for the course and books to study. If you really know what you’re doing, the exam is not that hard … it was easy to pass. I think a lot of people put it off because they are afraid they are not going to pass. I found it to be one of the easier board exams I’ve ever sat for. And what’s also nice is that the exam stops when you answer enough correct questions to pass, and it gives you your result right away. You don’t have to sit for a six-hour exam and wait eight weeks for the results to come in the mail. You know that day, and if you answer enough correctly in the first three-and-a-half hours, you’re done. I was strongly encouraged by my manager to take the course, and I thought “Why not? My company’s paying for it. Why not add another notch in my belt?” … I would encourage anyone who is thinking about it to go ahead and give it a shot. —Nikki Hatfield, MBA, CMA, CHCP, on her journey to the CHCP certification
It was a desire to stand out, a desire to do better and continue to learn and collect all the letters at the end of my name. I’m trying to collect the alphabet! —Andrea Funk, CHCP, on receiving the Alliance Distinguished Member Award
For me, it was finding the right mentor who stood up for me when I needed it most and kept pointing me in the right direction, kept steering me toward the right spots in healthcare and found this little niche with my background. Figure out what you’re good at, and find someone to pull you upwards. —Matthew Stern, MS, on receiving the Forty Under 40 designation in 2024
The CHCP is valuable because it gives you a little bit of insight into everything that goes on with education. For someone who specifically works in accreditation, it’s valuable for me to see how the pieces fit together and that accreditation is really a partnership with all of the other pieces — instructional design, learning theory, it’s all informed. It helps me address looking at policies or looking at checklists and tracking all the data, checking all the boxes, all the fun file stuff that accreditation people do through the MVP lens. Making it meaningful, valuable and purposeful. And really speaking to, at least understanding or having an empathy for, where other people are coming from … I’m a context person, so hearing a word and knowing what it means is helpful. Could I tell you all of Petoskey’s Change Theory? I could not, but do I know what it is? I do, and that’s exciting.” —Caitlyn Keenan, MS, LSSGB, CHCP, on how the CHCP is valuable in her accreditation work

What’s Next?

How was your first day at #Alliance25? Networking and education are just beginning! Join us on Friday for the Sunrise Yoga Session, breakfast and Conference Concierge Session, keynote “Art History: Your Secret Weapon for Better Continuing Education in Health Care Professions” from Siobhan Conaty, PhD, and concurrent sessions all day long.