PULTEVENT
Audience response system for medical conferences: 7 session formats
An audience response system for medical conferences used to mean a box of handheld keypads, a technician counting them back in at the end of the day and a few that always went missing. Delegates now carry a better device in their pocket. This page describes how clinical and scientific sessions can collect responses from phones, what each format suits, and where the limits are.
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Medical audiences are a particular crowd. Consultants and trainees sit in the same hall, and the trainees rarely raise a hand to disagree with a professor's management choice. Case discussions work best when the room commits to an answer before the expert reveals theirs. Long plenary lectures lose attention by minute twenty. An audience response tool addresses all three, provided it is quick to join and protects people who prefer not to be named.
PULTEVENT runs in the phone browser. Delegates scan a QR code on the session screen and they are in, without an app or an account. The session chair or a technician controls the activities from a laptop, and the results appear on the projector within a couple of seconds. Phones and the laptop need internet, so the venue's delegate Wi-Fi should be confirmed with the AV team in advance.
7 formats for clinical and scientific sessions
1 Clinical case: which management would you choose
The presenter describes a case, then two options appear on screen and on phones, for example conservative management and early surgery, each with the name and photo of the faculty member who will argue for it. Delegates choose. The split grows live, then the discussants make their case.
How to run it. Hide the result from phones until you close the round, so the first votes don't sway the rest. Allow changing votes if you want to see how the argument moves the room.
The trend chart shows how many delegates changed their mind after the discussion. That is the teaching point of the session, made visible.
2 Before and after a debate on the evidence
Two faculty members take opposite positions on a contested guideline question. The hall votes before the debate, the round stays open during it, and the trend chart records every shift.
How to run it. Set a round timer that matches the debate slot, and switch the voter count display on so the chair can quote participation.
Pro-con sessions are popular at congresses. A visible swing gives the chair a clear way to close and gives the winner an honest result.
3 Anonymous questions to faculty
Delegates choose the speaker from a list and type a question. With anonymous mode on, the moderator sees the question but not the author. Other delegates upvote questions they share.
How to run it. Turn pre-moderation on and ask the moderator to reject questions that contain identifiable patient details. The moderator approves, hides, or marks a question as passed to the speaker.
Trainees and nurses ask the practical questions a hall of consultants would not. The chair reads the most upvoted, not the first hand.
4 Unclear-slide signal in a plenary lecture
During a long lecture, delegates tap reactions: learned something new, strong case, agree, unclear. If unclear starts to grow on the side screen, the speaker knows a slide needs another sentence.
How to run it. Keep the reaction panel on a side screen or the speaker's confidence monitor, not on the main projector, so the lecture slides stay clean.
Speakers rarely learn which part of a talk lost the audience. This tells them while there is still time to fix it.
5 Best abstract or poster, audience award
Shortlisted abstracts become project cards with title, authors and a figure. Each delegate spreads a budget of points across them, and the cards rank by total. The committee announces the audience award alongside the jury award.
How to run it. Open the round only after the last presentation of the block, and close it before the award ceremony so the result is fixed.
A points budget rewards the work people genuinely rate, not simply the author with most colleagues in the hall.
6 Research priorities session
Societies often ask members which questions deserve funding or a guideline update. List the candidate topics as cards and let each delegate allocate points. The board sees a ranked list with the total and the number of supporters.
How to run it. Rename the points in the control panel, for example priority points, and set the starting balance that suits the number of topics.
The result goes straight into the society's planning papers, and members see that their input produced a concrete list.
7 Session feedback in two taps
At the end of each session, open a short reaction set of your own: relevant to my practice, too basic, too advanced, would recommend. The committee compares sessions across the programme after the congress.
How to run it. Start a new session in the control panel for each block so the charts don't mix. Change the labels to match what the scientific committee wants to learn.
Paper feedback forms and next-day email surveys get low returns. Delegates answer in the room before they walk out.
Case votes before the reveal
Two management options on screen, the hall commits, then the faculty explains which they would choose and why.
Anonymous questions for trainees
The organizer can make questions anonymous, so juniors ask what they would never say into a microphone.
No hardware to hand out
No keypads, no receivers, no collection at the door. Delegates use their own phones.
A chart per session
Reactions are recorded session by session, so the scientific committee can compare talks afterwards.
What this is and what it is not
This is a tool for interaction in sessions: case votes, debates, questions, reactions and an audience ranking. It is not a formal examination or assessment system, and the results are not intended as evidence of individual learning for accreditation. If your accreditation body needs individual attendance or test records, keep that on the system you already use for it.
Patient confidentiality stays with the presenters. Case slides should be anonymised as usual, and the question moderator should reject anything that could identify a patient before it reaches the screen.
Why phones replaced keypads
Handheld keypads need to be booked, distributed, paired with a receiver and collected. They also limit you to multiple-choice answers. Phones join by QR code, carry free-text questions, and show the delegate a clear confirmation of what they chose. One phone counts once; repeat attempts are refused by the server, and a phone that drops off the Wi-Fi returns to its own session.
The trade-off is connectivity. Everything goes through the server, so the hall needs delegate Wi-Fi or good mobile coverage. Basement lecture theatres are the usual problem; test there with an ordinary phone, not the technician's laptop.
Running a case session, step by step
Before the congress, the presenter sends the two options for each case and the names of the discussants. The technician enters them as debate positions with photos. On the day, the chair introduces the case, the technician opens the round, the chair says: "Scan the code and choose how you would manage this patient. You have one minute." The split grows on screen. The chair closes the round, the discussants argue, and the trend chart is shown at the end.
Keep cases short. Three cases in a forty-minute slot is plenty; five turns into a rush.
Common mistakes in medical sessions
Showing the live split while delegates are still voting, which pushes late voters toward the majority. Forgetting pre-moderation in a session with anonymous questions. Testing the screen in the morning but not after the industry-sponsored lunch, when the AV input was changed. Not telling faculty in advance that questions will come from phones, so they are surprised by a list rather than a microphone queue.
Branding, data and access
Your society's logo, palette and terminology go onto the delegate page, and the organizer edits them without a developer. After the last session, download the results for the scientific committee and wipe them from the platform. The servers sit in Russia, so run that past whoever handles data protection for the society. You can pay per month or once for permanent access; a trial of 72 hours is free and asks for no card details.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who hosts forums, professional congresses and corporate conferences. He has run over 500 events since 2014 and was named best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He built it for his own stages first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run audience response at a medical conference
- 1
Agree with the scientific committee which sessions use case votes, debates, questions or awards.
- 2
Collect case options, discussant names and photos, and enter them in the control panel.
- 3
Brand the delegate page and set questions to anonymous with pre-moderation.
- 4
Test in each lecture theatre with an ordinary phone and the real projector.
- 5
In the session, show the QR code, open the round, then close it before discussing results.
- 6
After the congress, export session results for the committee and clear the data.
FAQ
Is there anything for delegates to install?
Will trainees see their names on screen?
Can we hide the case vote result until discussion?
Can it replace an accredited assessment?
How do we stop patient details reaching the screen?
What happens to the responses afterwards?
What does it cost a society?
See also
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