Know Your Audience: Your Superpower for Creating CME Content That Connects With Different Learners
Understanding the learners you’re writing for can take CME from good to great. How can you do that — and do it better than you already are?
As CME/CE medical writers, it’s tempting to match our content to a job title – physician, nurse, pharmacist, therapist — and stop there. But behind every role is a real person, working in a real environment, balancing time pressures, patient needs, and workplace demands that all shape how they engage with continuing education.
The leap from good CME to great CME happens when we account for those daily realities. When you understand what your learners’ day looks like, the types of patients they serve, and the barriers they face, you can create education that feels relevant, accessible, and worth their time.
Let’s take a closer look at the healthcare context in which CME learners work. You’ll gain a clearer understanding of the unique challenges they face and explore practical ways to design CME that connects with different professionals and delivers real-world impact.
Download your free Audience Analysis Toolkit to elevate your CME this year.
Laying the Groundwork: Context Before Content
Before you can create CME that truly connects, you need a clear picture of the healthcare landscape your learners work in. Care is shifting more and more toward shared decision-making and patient-centered models, fueled by the rise of precision medicine and the demand for personalized care.
If you’ve ever been a clinician — or still are — you know the real challenge is bridging the gap between these big-picture shifts and the day-to-day reality of a specific group of learners.
That reality is shaped by a wide range of professional roles: physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, social workers — to name just a few. Each brings unique expertise and faces distinct demands in their daily work.
Layer on top the rapid evolution of care delivery models and technologies — from telehealth platforms to multidisciplinary teams — and you have a constantly changing environment that affects how professionals work, communicate, and learn.
That’s why it’s not enough to know a learner’s job title. To design CME that resonates, you need to understand the system health professionals operate within, the pressures they navigate, and the opportunities they have to make space for learning. Once you have that context, you can zero in on the learners themselves.
Go Beyond Demographics: Understanding the Person Behind the Role
Knowing someone’s job title, their specialty, or how many years of experience they have is only the beginning. To create CME content that the learner can see themselves applying in daily practice, you need to understand the person behind the role.
That means gaining a better understanding at of the following factors:
How their practice location, interdisciplinary care, and professional roles shape their daily routines and responsibilities
What their most likely stressors are; and
The characteristics of patients they care for the most.
It also means knowing the boundaries and responsibilities of their scope of practice.
Think of it this way: a rural community health nurse may work with limited resources, caring for a wide range of patients in a single day. An urban hospital pharmacist, on the other hand, may focus only on highly specialized biologic medications with direct access to advanced systems, technology and support staff. Both are healthcare professionals, but their challenges, priorities, and learning needs differ significantly.
When you approach CME writing by using empathy-based learner profiling, you move from merely delivering information to creating education that feels relevant, timely, and practical to the person receiving it.
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From Clinic to Classroom: Meeting Learners Where They Are
Healthcare professionals work in environments where every minute counts. A typical day may involve managing high patient volumes, completing detailed documentation, and handling various administrative tasks to ensure that operations run smoothly. Many also work irregular shifts, which can lead to fatigue and unpredictable schedules. These realities shape when, how, and where they can engage with CME.
For a CME writer, understanding these pressures is the trick to making education accessible. If someone is dealing with back-to-back appointments or working a 12-hour shift, long and difficult modules likely won’t get their attention. Short, mobile-friendly content is a great way to help them fit learning into the cracks of a busy day.
By connecting clinical workload to learning receptiveness, you create education that respects the learner’s time and still meets all of their professional goals. That attention to their daily realities is what turns content from a task into a truly valuable resource.
The Importance of Patient Population and Care Environment
The types of patients that a healthcare professional sees cares for are going to play a role in shaping their priorities for CME. A rural provider might manage a wide range of complex cases, often without having the option to refer patients to a specialist. Their learning needs may span multiple disciplines and require a strong emphasis on practical and adaptable solutions.
On the other hand, an urban specialist might focus on highly niche conditions, working with the latest interventions and cutting-edge research in their field. The care environment also makes a difference. A hospital rich in resources may offer access to advanced technology and support. At the same time, an underfunded community clinic may require innovative thinking and strategies that work within limited equipment and staffing.
You can also consider the demographics of the populations your learners are managing. Which health problems do those populations experience more often? What barriers to care do specific populations experience? How might a patient with no financial concerns experience an appointment with your learner differently than a patient with limited resources?
Incorporating these considerations into your CME content will help cultivate cultural awareness among learners – and, at times, go a step further to provide solutions.
When CME reflects the realities of a learner’s patient population and the resources available to them, it will feel immediately relevant. That relevance will help capture your audience’s attention and will also increase the likelihood that the new knowledge you provide will be applied in real-world care.
The Most Common Barriers to Learning and How to Overcome Them
It’s no secret that healthcare professionals face some formidable challenges when it comes to participating in CME. Time constraints are common, with busy schedules leaving little (if any) room for learning. Limited funding for CME can make it harder for learners to access certain programs or travel to in-person events. Technology access issues, like poor internet connectivity and outdated devices, also pose barriers to participation in online modules. Plus, some skepticism toward new therapies, procedures or interventions is not uncommon, especially if the evidence is ambiguous or if the suggested changes to practice are likely to disrupt already established workflows and standards of care.
As a CME writer, you can reduce or help remove these barriers. To do so, you need to build clear, actionable content that gets to the point quickly. Share real-world patient case studies so the learning feels relevant and directly applicable. Use plain language without oversimplifying complex ideas to ensure accuracy and ease of follow. Format the content to be accessible across various devices and settings, allowing learners to engage at any time and from any location.
The more you anticipate these challenges, the more you can design CME content that fits seamlessly into a learner’s world. Removing obstacles will help boost participation and increase the chances that the new and valuable knowledge you provide will actually be applied in practice.
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Knowing your audience means seeing beyond their credentials and genuinely striving to understand their environment, the challenges they face, and the things they prioritize. It’s about connecting with the human being behind the role, and not just tailoring content to a specific job title. When you write with this higher level of awareness, your words can bridge gaps, remove barriers, and create real-world learning that has a positive impact on patient care.
Now is the time to write CME content that leaves a lasting mark on both the learner and the patients that they serve. Step into your next project with greater clarity, empathy, and purpose with your free Audience Analysis toolkit. Let’s create something that truly makes a meaningful difference.
