An interview with Anna Troise of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
Scholarly associations and societies are well-positioned to make use of their great content to create new products that support professional education. To help organizations take full advantage of this opportunity, Maverick is speaking with publishing executives who have successfully implemented these types of programs to get their firsthand knowledge and tips.
In the first installment of our Professional Education interview series, Maverick Senior Associate Jayne Marks speaks with Anna Troise, Chief Commercial Officer from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, who provides insight into new product development for professional learning and the potential for AI. Watch Maverick’s Insights blog for upcoming interviews in the series.
Can you tell us a little about AAOS?
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) is a diverse society serving 39,000 members whose mission is to serve the profession to provide the highest quality musculoskeletal care. The AAOS education goal is to serve the needs of the entire professional journey, from trainee to senior surgeons through driving the delivery of learning products to cover the whole team, from surgeons to allied health professionals.
Can you give us an overview of the kinds of products that the AAOS offers?
AAOS offers a range of books and journals which, along with our annual meeting, form the cornerstone of our content. In addition, we offer exams and assessments, including the Orthopaedic In-Training Exam, continuing medical education (CME) through video, webinars, live courses in our cadaver lab, and online products.
AAOS has recently launched a major new product, Resident Orthopaedic Core Knowledge (ROCK). This is a 5-year long program for residents covering 11 specialties that offers access to 3,400 test questions, 800 videos, and more than 2,000 journal articles and book chapters. This product took four years to develop and was a huge commitment of time and resources from the Academy staff and volunteers.
ROCK is hosted by Silverchair. Other AAOS learning products are hosted by Crowd Wisdom’s Learning Management System. ROCK is free for residents and sold into the residency programs in hospitals and healthcare networks. We hope that residents using ROCK during their training will ultimately want to join AAOS as members when they qualify.
What have you learned from the development of ROCK?
Our goal was to create a market-leading product for this important audience segment. As such it had to be a comprehensive product from launch spanning all the key specialties in orthopaedics. This took both time and resources within the Academy and we now want to focus more on rapid product development through a more agile development process.
We are learning that products or product enhancements offered to members, perhaps as prototypes, do not have to be perfect at launch allowing us to continuously improve and, more importantly, to develop small products faster.
The AAOS is now beginning to experiment with AI both in our technology and generative AI for content development. AAOS is enthusiastic about the potential to use AI to deliver increased productivity in content development so long as there is always an expert to review any content developed. Virtual Reality (VR) is proving to be more challenging to map online content to real-world learning. We are seeing some potential for supporting error recognition in surgical procedures and to help with the assessment of potential surgical outcomes.
Any recommendations for other societies who may be thinking about doing more in this area?
Don’t be afraid to experiment and to launch small products and get real-world feedback from your members. Be open to the use of new technologies to help the development of content and products.
Learn More
Maverick offers a global network of professionals with the depth and breadth of experience to match the exact needs of any project. Our Professional Education program helps you take advantage of opportunities by providing a simple, practical process to repurpose the investment in your content into new offerings. Reach out to your Maverick representative or email us at info@maverick-os.com to learn more.
By Jayne Marks, Maverick Senior Associate
Jayne Marks brings over 40 years of scholarly publishing experience to Maverick. She has worked at senior levels in a variety of companies helping to devise and deliver on business strategies tailored for different markets. Throughout her career, Jayne has responded to ever-changing market environments by developing new product, sales, or content strategies to maximize new opportunities. Jayne’s primary focus has been on understanding the needs of the customers and markets that her products serve and ensuring they evolve to meet changing needs.
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