In a lymphoma initiative, Smart Patients and Genmab are co-developing a different model: Structured patient intelligence drawn from a longitudinal, moderated, peer-to-peer community of people with lived experience is embedded at the earliest stage of the Independent Medical Education (IME) lifecycle, where it informs the request for proposals, shapes funding decisions and defines success metrics before grantees are selected. This shifts patient intelligence from content input to funding criterion — and shifts IME from a reactive execution tool to a proactive strategic driver.

This concentrated session previews work that will be presented in a future meeting in 2027. AIS attendees are getting an early look at a methodology being built in real time, with the lymphoma program as its first proof point and a scalable evaluation framework taking shape alongside it.

Igniting Clinical Impact in IME: The Power of Strategic Communication
Holly Elefante, MS, CMP | Natalie Sanfratello, MPH, CHCP | Jennifer Boyd, MBA, CHCP

Session Summary
This session will present a real-world case study of how the value of an IME-supported system-based initiative was communicated throughout the organization. Focusing on IME professionals' need to consistently employ strategic communication (and adjust their approach depending on their audience), the session will demonstrate how to effectively convey the impact of such initiatives to different internal stakeholders. Attendees will learn how to tailor their messaging for various audiences, from the IME team to senior leadership, to ensure engagement, build credibility and foster support for future projects.

From Data to Impact: Effective Storytelling in Independent Medical Education
Aida Sanchez-Bretano Sanchez, PhD

Session Summary
In IME, data alone rarely drives change. While outcomes frameworks and metrics are essential, their impact depends on how effectively they are communicated to stakeholders. Yet many educational initiatives still rely on dense reporting and fragmented narratives that fail to convey true value or influence decision-making.

This session explores how storytelling can be used as a strategic tool to strengthen the impact of IME. Drawing on cross-stakeholder experience, it examines a common gap: The disconnect between robust outcomes data and the way it is presented to internal and external audiences.

Three key challenges will be addressed: Over-reliance on data without narrative structure, lack of clarity on the audience and purpose of communication and missed opportunities to translate outcomes into meaningful, practice-relevant insights.

Through practical examples, the session will introduce principles for effective storytelling in IME, including structuring narratives around clinical decisions, aligning messages with stakeholder priorities and integrating data into clear, compelling storylines that demonstrate real-world relevance.

By shifting from reporting outcomes to communicating impact, IME professionals can enhance credibility, strengthen stakeholder engagement and more effectively demonstrate the value of education in improving clinical practice and patient care.

Transforming Continuing Professional Development Data Into Decision-Ready Stories
Leen Alyaseen, PharmD, MBA | Manav Patel, PharmD, MBA

Session Summary
We spend months collecting CPD outcomes data. Then we bury it in 30-slide decks that no one reads.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: 95% of accredited CPD activities measure competence, 46% measure performance and fewer than 18% measure patient health outcomes. Even when organizations do collect meaningful data, most reports fail the five-second test — a stakeholder glancing at your summary cannot tell what changed, for whom or what to do next.

The problem is not the data. It is the story.

The I·A·O·N framework solves this by giving CPD professionals a repeatable, four-step structure that forces clarity: Insight (what does the data actually reveal?), Action (what did learners do differently?), Outcome (what changed for patients or systems?) and Next Step (what is the one decision-ready recommendation?).

This is not theory. We built and applied this framework across a six-disease-area oncology outcomes portfolio at Decera Clinical Education, producing stakeholder-ready one-slide summaries for each program. Every number was verified against raw data. Every qualitative finding was source-traced to the original program of materials. Every slide was written to answer the question a medical director, grant funder or clinical leader would ask.

In ten minutes, you will see how the framework works, watch it applied to real data and leave with a structure you can use the next time you sit down to write a CPD outcomes summary.

From Volume to Value: Reimagining Educational Impact Through Scaled Learning Data
Karyn Ruiz-Cordell, PhD | Lindsay Labriola | Jeffrey Rosario

Session Summary
As medical education rapidly grows in both scale and complexity, our industry is at a crossroads: We’re drowning in activity metrics, yet starved for true insight. Each year, millions of healthcare provider interactions are logged — but the real impact of this data remains elusive and fragmented.

In our session, we introduce a breakthrough, integrated model for transforming massive educational datasets into strategic, actionable insight. Drawing on over 19 million learner engagements across six years, we reveal how a cross-functional approach — spanning analytics, operations and strategic leadership — can finally move us beyond surface-level metrics.

We’ll show you how to extract meaningful signals from high-volume data, map learning outcomes to real clinical gaps and operationalize these insights across your organization. By uniting vision, analytics and execution into a single, coordinated system, we offer a scalable blueprint for redefining impact in medical education, unlocking new ways to support HCPs and, ultimately, improve patient care.

Join us to rethink what’s possible when data isn’t just measured, but truly understood.

From Invisible to Indispensable: Elevating the Impact of Innovative CME
Dean Beals, BA | Samantha Lansdowne, MBA, MSJ | Anne Roc, PhD | Justus Flair | Priya Muley, MPH

Session Summary
In today’s IME landscape, the real challenge isn’t creating good education, it’s about relevance and impact. Traditional formats like webcasts and satellite symposia still have a role, but on their own, they no longer generate the level of engagement or insight needed to capture the attention of medical affairs leaders and cross functional stakeholders.

Through quality improvement initiatives, claims and EHR driven education, small group learning and other nontraditional formats, IME can do more than transfer knowledge. These models generate richer data, uncover real world practice gaps and surface meaningful learner insights that traditional formats simply can’t deliver. For internal teams, that’s the difference between IME being seen as a ‘nice to have’ option versus being recognized as a strategic partner, one that informs decision-making across the organization. Because at the end of the day, success isn’t defined by how many attended a program, but by what changed, and what insights can be leveraged to develop initiatives that improve patient care.

This session won’t just talk about that shift — we’ll make it actionable. Learners will engage directly to identify the barriers they face in receiving support for IME programs in an era of increasing company-led education. We’ll explore what providers can do differently to better support their peers in pharma and deliver IME programs that are visible, valuable and impossible to ignore.

From Slide Decks to Systems: Using AI to Generate and Consume CME Outcomes Responsibly
Katie Lucero, PhD, MS | Chimene Richa, MD | Jasleen Chahal, PhD | Heather Lavigne, PhD

Session Summary
Medical education teams and supporters have been under pressure to show clearer value from independent grants. As AI is increasingly used in outcomes reporting, organizations are facing a growing challenge. While these tools can speed analysis and surface new insights, there is limited shared guidance on how AI is being used by supporters and MECs and how to ensure results are valid, transparent and trustworthy.

This 60-minute hybrid session, aligned with the AIS theme RISE: Redefining Impact, Strategy and Engagement in Medical Education, will unpack how AI enabled outcomes reporting can move beyond pretty reports and basic pre-post assessment question results to uncover the real "so what" and "why" through data triangulation and synthesis.

Using a provocative real-world example, a medical education provider and an industry supporter will prime the audience to think critically about which aspects of AI generated outcomes warrant more questioning and which can be relied on with appropriate training, oversight and validation. A moderated panel will then explore practical use cases (NLP for free text, automated data quality checks, learner clustering, AI assisted narratives) from the MEC and supporter perspective, how stakeholders actually interpret and use these outputs, and the safeguards needed to keep them valid and trustworthy.

Together with the audience, the panel will co-create a concise checklist of do’s and don’ts for responsible AI in outcomes reporting requirements providers and supporters can realistically meet and supporters can confidently request so our use of AI strengthens scientific rigor, independence and stakeholder confidence rather than undermining it.