Overview
Learn how Springer Medizin works with Saba partner Chemmedia AG to provide a single, centralized e-learning platform based on Saba that streamlines content creation, management, and distribution of required continuing medical education (CME) for practicing physicians across Germany.
Business Challenge
Springer Medizin wanted to offer a better, more convenient way for practicing physicians in Germany to obtain the continuing medical education (CME) training required in their profession.
Business Benefits
-Simplify the way German physicians obtain necessary CME credits through a centralized e-learning platform
-Provide a streamlined solution for content creation, management, and distribution in a variety of e-learning formats
-Rely on an intuitive, simple-to-use interface to enable physicians to obtain quick results, even with minimal online learning experience
-Deliver built-in scalability to keep pace with expected growth as physicians take advantage of the higher-quality, expanded course offerings
Why Teams call analytics are critical to your entire business
Springer Medizin Taps Saba to Perfect E-Learning
1. ®
Springer Medizin is the leading medical publishing
organization combining the individual strength of
five major medical publishers (Ärzte Zeitung, bsmo,
Springer Gesundheits- und Pharmazieverlag,
Springer-Verlag and Urban & Vogel) into a major
service for specialist target-groups in healthcare
(practitioners, dentists, psychologists, pharmacists,
nurses and patients). Their offerings have an
impressive reach approaching almost all individuals in
the healthcare market. With their most known print-
services Springer Medizin reaches 100% of all medical
doctors including over 120 journals and magazines
and over 1,200 publications.
Springer Medizin’s renewed online-services are market
leading – more than 100,000 registered medical
doctors receive more than 1 million online-publications
each month generating more that 3.5 million page
impressions per month. Before the renewal of the
training services Springer Medizin’s registered medical
doctors completed more than 530,000 courses in
“Continuing-medical-education”.
Case Study
Industry: Healthcare
Use Case: Learning Management
Springer Medizin already
offers a broad spectrum of
specialist articles and learning
media on topics related to
continuing education…Now
that the infrastructure has
been updated, this will mean
even more widespread use of
our online offerings.
Matthias Wissel
Managing Director
New Media IT
Springer Medizin
Challenge
Offer a better, more convenient way for practicing
physicians in Germany to obtain the continuing medical
education (CME) training required in their profession.
Business Benefits
• Simplify the way German physicians obtain
necessary CME credits through a centralized
e-learning platform
• Provide a streamlined solution for content creation,
management, and distribution in a variety of
e-learning formats
• Rely on an intuitive, simple-to-use interface to enable
physicians to obtain quick results, even with minimal
online learning experience
• Deliver built-in scalability to keep pace with expected
growth as physicians take advantage of the higher-
quality, expanded course offerings
• Offer the assurance of working with Saba — the
leader in people systems — and chemmedia’s
market leadership in knowledge resources
and processes
Springer Medizin taps Saba to create a centralized e-learning platform for physicians
across Germany.
2. Case Study Springer Medizin
2
“Springer Medizin is strengthening its brand by
dovetailing related content (on the new centralized
platform),” Wissel commented. “This enables us to
enhance our position as a partner to the German Medical
Association and other professional associations.”
Going with the Learning Leader
Springer Medizin chose Saba for its centralized
e-learning platform because Saba is the premier
provider of people systems for organizations that
rely on their employees as key differentiators in
the marketplace. Saba combines learning, people
management, and collaboration people and cultivate
individual and collective know-how for better results.
The ability to scale Saba with virtually no limitations and
the robustness of the solution that allows physicians to
rely on the new CME platform’s availability 24x7 were
other key considerations for Springer Medizin
and Chemmedia.
Prescription for Growth
While Springer Medizin already serves the majority
of Germany’s physicians, the publisher expects to
increase its CME delivery to the medical community
with the rollout of a single, centralized delivery platform
and expanded content offerings on Saba. In addition,
over time Springer Medizin will consider whether to
undertake similar platform upgrades for the other
vertical markets it serves.
For now, the ability of Saba and Chemmedia’s
KnowledgeWorker to optimize Springer Medizin’s online
offerings has provided a prescription for continued
healthy growth.
In Germany, most of the approximately 326,000
physicians practicing medicine are subject to
demanding continuing-education requirements. These
physicians must accumulate 250 continuing medical
education (CME) points over a five-year period — with
penalties for failing to do so. Because few physicians
have the time to earn the needed CME credits
through in-classroom training or conferences, much
of the educational offerings are delivered print and
online through platforms such as Springer Medical
Publishing Group’s CME.springer.de and
CME-Punkt.de web portals.
In mid-2012, to help standardize and expand these
CME offerings, Saba partner Chemmedia AG merged
the two platforms containing nearly two million
completed training programs into a single, centralized
e-learning platform based on Saba. Springer Medizin
and Chemmedia also added 700 new e-learning
course offerings to the newly created delivery channel.
“Springer Medizin already offers a broad spectrum of
specialist articles and learning media on topics related
to continuing education — to-date as Adobe PDF
files and online questionnaires, with management and
archiving functions,” said Matthias Wissel, Managing
Director, New Media IT at Springer Medizin. “Now
that the infrastructure has been updated, this will mean
even more widespread use of our online offerings.”
Streamlined Content Creation and Distribution
Using Chemmedia’s powerful KnowledgeWorker
content-authoring tool and the Saba management
system has enabled Springer Medizin to quickly
create, adapt, manage, and distribute new interactive
multimedia courses in a wider variety of learning
formats — with authors requiring little or no formal
content-authoring or programming expertise. Existing
content created using many popular applications such
as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint can be quickly
brought into KnowledgeWorker and adapted for
interactive or multimedia delivery with added graphics
and other elements.
“Medical writers at Springer Medizin find lots of ways
to expand and individualize their offerings quickly and
efficiently for their target groups,” said Chemmedia
AG CEO Lars Fassmann. “In addition, the easy-to-
operate learning interface brings quick results, even for
people with little experience dealing with online learning
modules, such as physicians in stress over continuing
education requirements.”
The KnowledgeWorker solution provides a single,
central, web-based tool to use when developing and
creating compelling, new course content. “All of our
products provide web services,” noted Chemmedia
project manager, Thomas Weigel. “This enables our
customers to create complex networking of the new
system with existing processes and infrastructure —
and that saves time and money.”
Scalability to Accommodate Expanding Usage
The highly scalable solution was developed with a
flexible interface and built-in customization capabilities
to accommodate the continued expansion of Springer
Medizin’s CME and other continuing-education
offerings. The solution can be easily integrated with
existing systems and databases, as well as third-party
products and services to address any opportunity.