For the first time ever, URAC live streamed the accreditation standards workshops. We held all four workshops on March 1 and 2 at the Renaissance Washington, DC.

On March 1, the first day of Pharmacy was in session in one meeting room, and in a separate meeting room, the Core v4.0 workshop was in session at the same time. On March 2, the second day of Pharmacy was in session, and in two other meeting rooms, the HUM/WCUM and Case Management workshops were in session at the same time.

ConferenceEdge (the company that manages the events platform) set up their video cameras and computers at the back of the meeting rooms to live stream the sessions. Live stream registrants were able to ask questions through the player, which were then read to the speakers during question sessions. Because we were live streaming, URAC staff walked around the audience with handheld microphones to ensure the audience at home could hear the questions.

While the cost of live stream registration is the same as in-person registration, live stream attendees save on travel and hotel. Live stream registration is an individual registration, just like in-person. The live stream registrant can bring a group together in one room to view the live webcast on one computer, but cannot share across multiple computers.

The additional benefit of the live streaming for all registrants is that everyone will have access to the recorded webcast for 30 days. They’ll be able to share that recording individually with others in their organization (but not post the login information on their Intranet or websites).

Here are the final attendance numbers (minus URAC staff):

• Core v4.0 (89), live stream (69)
• HUM/WCUM (36), live stream (22)
• CM v6.0 (25), live stream (9)
• Pharmacy (28), live stream (17)