By Alexandra Caufin

As the leader of an association, you know how important your annual conferences and meetings are for your members and for the financial strength of your organization. Conferences across the world are going digital with an exciting array of  new live streaming and video-conferencing technologies, and yours should be no exception.

Going digital with your conference is no longer a cutting-edge idea only for the technologically brave. It’s now both easy and inexpensive—and more than this, it’s going to be necessary for the survival of your association. Here’s why:

Maximize value proposition for attendees.
The simple fact is, you can’t be in two places at once. This is especially problematic when your conference attendee wants to attend multiple sessions at the same time. If conference-goers had the opportunity to participate in every session of a conference, some physically and some that have been digitally recorded, it would present an obviously greater value proposition than one-time only conference sessions.

Dr. Jayne Lee is not quite a teleporter but she’s about as close as it gets. A major proponent of telemedicine, Lee is a Paris-dwelling physician who treats her patients in North Carolina and Kentucky straight from France using robotic technology. And she’s not alone. In December 2013, the tv-famous psychiatrist Dr. Phil McGraw made headlines by announcing his role as advisor to Doctor on Demand, a new enterprise designed to provide care via mobile medicine.

In a world where society’s inevitable adoption of technology has made it possible to completely reinvent how we communicate, socialize and learn, healthcare is no exception. McGraw and Lee may seem like cutting edge futurists, but they are just two unique stories of the many healthcare professionals turning to technology to improve quality of care. 45% of clinicians now use smartphones and tablets to collect data at their patients’ bedsides. In fact, nearly all healthcare IT professionals report that their organizations supply mobile devices to clinicians to support day-to-day work activities, and 2 out of 3 have an official mobile technology plan in place.

We’re not just seeing technology being used in patient care, medical education is going digital as well. In 2012, for example, 40% of practicing physicians in North America were using online Continuing Medical Education (CME) to satisfy their annual requirements, up dramatically from 18% in 2005. By evolving the way that we deliver medical education, we are seeing real potential to in turn evolve the way we heal, treat and give care. Here are the four reasons why technology will continue to transform medical education and thus, the face of healthcare this year.