Eportfolio – A convenient portal for participation in Continuing Professional Development activities in the State of Qatar
Authors: Elsayed Dr. Essam Elsayed , Abdullah Muneera Ali , Aboulsoud Dr. Samar 
Published: June 2019

Background: Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioner (QCHP) is the sole authority regulating healthcare practitioners’ practice in the state of Qatar. The Accreditation Department (AD), as one of three pillar departments of QCHP, was delegated the responsibility to regulate medical and healthcare-related education (including Continuing Medical Education (CME)/Continuing Professional Development (CPD)) of all healthcare practitioners (HCPs) working in the country. In March 7 2016, QCHP-AD launched Qatar National CME / CPD system and framework. According to The National CME / CPD system, all licensed healthcare practitioners (Physicians, Nurses, Pharmacists, Dentists, Allied Health Professionals and Complementary Medicine Practitioners) working in the state of Qatar were mandated to participate in CPD activities and fulfill CPD credit requirements to be able to renew their license of practice. In parallel, QCHP developed and launched an online portal “E-portfolio” to facilitate engagement of its main stakeholders (healthcare practitioners, CPD providers and QCHP surveyors) with the National system. The E-portfolio serves as a platform for healthcare practitioners to plan for, record and submit to QCHP the CPD activities they completed. E-Portfolio had similar platforms for CPD providers to apply for QCHP accreditation of their organizations &amp;/or the activities they provide and for QCHP surveyors to receive and submit their CPD providers surveyor reports. In addition, E-portfolio serves as a communication tool for upcoming accredited activities as well as standards, policies, procedures and guidelines relevant to target stakeholder. Methodology: A questionnaire was developed by QCHP to examine healthcare practitioners, CPD providers and QCHP surveyors’ experience and satisfaction with QCHP E-portfolio. The survey focused on aspects related to ease of access, user friendliness, QCHP's interaction and user support. The questionnaire was electronically distributed and collected from the target Participants. In addition, E-portfolio usage statistics were collected. This included data for healthcare practitioners’ usage (e.g. number of created accounts, number of completed CPD activities recorded in E-portfolio and % compliance to CPD requirements), CPD providers’ usage (e.g. number of CPD providers’ and CPD activities’ accreditation requests processed) and surveyors’ usage (e.g. number of created accounts and number of CPD providers’ accreditation requests processed). Data were analyzed using statistical analysis software, presented and discussed in this research work. Results: Survey analysis results showed high rates of satisfaction with QCHP's e-portfolio usage expressed by healthcare practitioners, CPD providers and QCHP surveyors. This was further evidenced by positive usage rates from target stakeholders. Discussion: Using online portals, such as QCHP's E-portfolio, is associated with high levels of user satisfaction compared to conventional methods. This is attributed to the ease of access they provide; however, user-friendly designs and high quality customer support are necessary to ensure customer satisfaction and compliance. Reliability and record security might represent challenges to success of online portals experience unless supported by adequate verification, audit and data protection processes. Conclusions: E-portfolio proved to be a convenient portal for Qatar's healthcare practitioners, CPD providers and accreditation surveyors’ participation in the National CME/CPD system.