Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common hospital condition; however, our analysis indicates that clinicians lack confidence in selecting appropriate management strategies for patients.

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine if an online, video-based continuing medical education (CME) intervention could improve knowledge and competence of cardiologists and hematologists/oncologists in managing patients with VTE.

Description: An online CME activity was developed as a 25-minute roundtable discussion with 3 leading experts on strategies to manage patients with VTE. The activity included a transcript of the discussion and a downloadable slide deck to reinforce key data. The effects of education were assessed using a linked pre-assessment/post-assessment study design. For all questions combined, the McNemar’s chi-square test was used to assess differences from pre- to post-assessment. P values are shown as a measure of significance; P values <.05 are statistically significant. Cramer’s V was used to calculate the effect size.

Results: Comparison of 4 individually linked pre-assessment question responses to the respective post-assessment responses demonstrated statistically significant improvements for both cardiologists (N = 103; V = 0.078; P<.05) and hematologists/oncologists (N=44; V=0.199; P<.05).  Whereas 35% of cardiologists and 23% of hematologists/oncologists answered all 4 pre-assessment questions correctly, 43% and 61%, respectively, answered all questions correctly on the post-assessment. In general, cardiologists had a higher baseline level of knowledge than hematologists/oncologists:

  • Among cardiologists, the average correct response rate pre assessment was 72% compared to 79% post-assessment

  • Among hematologists/oncologists, the average correct response rate pre-assessment was 64% compared to 82% post-assessment

Significant improvements were observed in participant knowledge and competence on management of VTE:

  • A 26% relative improvement among cardiologists (86% vs 68%; P<.05) and a 98% improvement among hematologists/oncologists (89% vs 45%; P<.05) in the ability to recognize major bleeding rates for non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) vs warfarin

  • A 35% relative improvement among hematologists/oncologists in selection of appropriate measures to manage NOAC-related bleeding (77% vs 57%; P<.05)

Conclusions: The statistically significant improvements observed in this online CME activity demonstrate the benefits of using wide-reaching, video-based educational design to improve knowledge and competence of different specialty groups involved in management of patients with VTE, and suggests that this type of intervention can translate into improvements in guideline-recommended patient care.