Pathfinder Pilot Provides Opportunities for BOC Approved Providers

In January, the BOC launched the Pathfinder pilot, a platform that guides professional development and promotes learning. Pathfinder is slated to be part of the Continuing Professional Certification (CPC) program currently in development and it promotes all components of CPC: professionalism, continuing professional development and practice performance. This pilot, approved last year by the BOC Board of Directors, is an opportunity for Athletic Trainers (ATs) to test and provide feedback until Dec. 31, 2024.

Pathfinder is a technology platform with a personalized dashboard through which ATs will have the opportunity to share their professional goals and interests, quiz themselves with evidence-based challenge questions and customize a professional development path by building a personal timeline. The intuitive system will recommend and allow ATs to save personalized references and targeted continuing education (CE) programs from BOC Approved Providers.

Ongoing participant feedback, as well as usage data, will be gathered and analyzed during this year-long pilot period to refine and finalize this platform, as appropriate. This is an important step in the creation of an interactive and individualized tool to drive an impactful CPC experience for ATs.

Benefits to BOC Approved Providers

The Pathfinder functionality of selecting targeted CE programs provides added exposure of BOC Approved Provider content to more than 3,000 pilot-enrolled ATs. An enhanced BOC Program Directory, an integral component of the Pathfinder pilot, was launched simultaneously.

The Pathfinder tool provides ATs with several opportunities to engage with the new program directory and BOC Approved Provider listings within their personalized dashboard, as follows:

• “My Challenge Questions”- Users are offered relevant BOC Approved Provider programs based on responses to individual challenge questions. Programs are selected neutrally through technology. In the future, the BOC will explore ways to share information with BOC Approved Providers about topics highlighted in Pathfinder, and the needs that arise through aggregated user patterns.
• “My Learning Path”- Users are encouraged to explore the program directory and add any active BOC Approved Provider offering to their professional development timeline based on the recommendations from challenge question results or identified topics that align with their goals.
• “Resources”- Users can also access the program directory linked under this tab on their Pathfinder dashboard.