APAC Best Education Award

The APAC Insider Australian Enterprise Awards Announced: Med CPD is a winner!

What a year it’s been! 

Recipients of the APAC Best Education Administration Program for 2023, Med CPD and Founder Dr Lars Paschburg were fortunate to be interviewed last month to chat about all things Med CPD, the goals and aspirations, as well as what’s in store for the near future. 

The following excerpt detailing the work of Med CPD is written by the APAC following interviews with Med CPD and founder Dr Lars Paschburg: 

“Continued Professional Development (CPD) is a vital necessity in the fast-moving professional landscape – and none more so than in medicine. Med CPD has become a de facto leader in this market for its best in class services. On the back of its well-deserved success, we spoke with company Director and Founder Lars Paschburg to find out more about his approach, experience and expertise.

There are few industries where CPD is more pressing and crucial than the medical and healthcare space. When lives are on the line, experts need to be aware of the latest techniques and expertise – there can be no lagging behind the crowd. Med CPD has cultivated an incredibly strong reputation for delivering the best solutions in this climate, ensuring that the industry retains its edge in tackling healthcare’s biggest obstacles. 

For Lars, Med CPD’s core mission is two-fold: allowing professionals to stay informed and educated, while also giving them a platform to stay connected and be heard. “Med CPD wants to really position itself as not only the leader in this space, but also sit in a place that the community of health professionals and providers have an opportunity to have a voice and be heard – we want to engage with the members and providers to really provide what is wanted and NEEDED in this space. Med CPD has the opportunity to be dynamic and support all elements that will improve the professional needs and support the market.”

Of course, the CPD landscape has been immensely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a move towards greater digital integration in recent years. In many ways, Med CPD has been a force for innovation, often beating industry trends to cater to the needs of the individuals utilising its services. Med CPD is built to support all aspects of the medical professional development space. “For the learners we provide free easy access to quality CPD in a space that has been designed and organised in the way that each professional experiences medicine. By reducing barriers we support the learners by giving them the opportunity to find and engage with content that fits their unique needs no matter where they are in their career.”

“For the providers we provide a highly specific target market supported by purpose built technology to assist with all elements of marketing needs. Providers have access to a customer space that stays true to their company branding, provides metrics to review the performance of their content, supports multiple team members and is managed by the provider allowing changes to be made at any time. Med CPD supports the visibility of each provider’s professional development content by making it easy for their target audience to find, share, organise and book, with high quality leads in what can be referred to as a bottom of funnel marketplace providers can enjoy cost effective marketing and highly targeted information. 

Through better supported healthcare professionals, better quality education and more engaged learners, the community we support will be better looked after in all aspects of their health and wellbeing.” Lars adds in explanation, before moving to discuss how the company was born from his direct experiences in the field. Above all else, the medical and healthcare sectors are in vital need of transparency and a guiding hand for new professionals looking to choose a career path.

“Med CPD was born from my journey through medicine and from the experiences of my colleagues in many different facets of medicine and healthcare. Something that stood out to me throughout medical school and the early years of my career was the sheer difficulty that many experience trying to understand and choose a path for their career. It was notable that each different career path had different requirements and almost hidden skill sets or qualifications that would be the deciding difference between possible candidates and not. This information was not recorded anywhere, and was passed through traditional means of contacts and colleague to colleague conversations. 

“The sheer disadvantage that one would have if they did not have access to their respective colleagues that are willing to impart this knowledge onto them. It would be almost impossible to find the respective courses, qualifications or providers of these courses if you were not given either the exact details or enough information to navigate the current digital space. Just like everything in life, we cannot know what we do not know, and when it comes to this space in the digital world, the search algorithms are not designed for us.”

Of course, the medical industry has almost become a victim to its own success – in a manner of speaking. With competition so high, support networks remain unable to keep up with demand. The need for ongoing training, plus this competitive edge often cultivates an environment that struggles to generate ongoing education efforts. Equally, while a prominent issue, it’s not one that is widely publicised, making Med CPD’s work ever more crucial to the ongoing development of the industry. “The medical world is already quite a segregated profession with many not having optimal access to colleagues and the opportunity to engage regularly for many becomes an issue. With some of the main opportunities for education and content being passed from people to people, many sit in a disadvantaged space to progress their career into interested areas, improve knowledge in areas that they have some difficulties in and overall makes it profoundly difficult for better education to be produced as getting the product to market is limited due to the sheer spread of the market. There had to be a better way. 

“All the solutions that I found did not quite fit what I believed to be meeting the needs of the learners and professionals in this space. Med CPD was built by medical professionals for medical professionals. Supporting the health of their career, for their entire career in health. 

Med CPD’s position allows us to support all CPD homes, all health professionals and all professional development providers that are educating and upskilling health professionals. This maintains the learner’ choice to be supported by the CPD home they choose and providers to market their education to the breadth and width of health care practitioners. With cross profession offerings, easy to use customer user experiences which have been peer reviewed and a singular focus to improve access to professional development for all Med CPD can support all facets of this space.”

With all of this in mind, and in regards to the future, Lars and Med CPD are looking to maintain its immense growth, with expansion into other markets and spaces. “Med CPD continues to grow and develop at a rapid rate. The imminent future holds expansion into both the Dental and Nursing CPD space. There are planned launches of unique features to support learners in creating their annual professional development plan and tracking their professional development goals/activities. Med CPD is driven to improve the quality of education being provided in the medical space and is working closely with leaders in this space to develop better metrics to identify quality education and allow them to be rewarded for this.” 

– APAC Insider, Australian Enterprise Awards Committee. Read more via the link: Australian Enterprise Awards 2023 (apac-insider.com)