Resources
Influential reports and white papers
AMA CEJA reports:
Institute of Medicine (IOM) report: Conflict of Interest in Medical Education, Research, and Practice
Senate Finance Committee: Use of Educational Grants by Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
Finance Committee, U.S. Senate. 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (accessed November 21, 2008).
The Macy Foundation Report: Continuing Education in the Health Professions: Improving Healthcare Through Lifelong Learning
Fletcher, S. W. 2008. Chairman’s summary of the conference. In Continuing Education in the Health Professions: Improving Healthcare Through Lifelong Learning, edited by M. Hager. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation.
Mayo CME Consensus Conference
AAMC Report: Industry Funding of Medical Education
AAMC. 2008c. Washington, DC: AAMC.
This report also recommended that academic medical centers establish a central office through which all requests for industry support and the receipt of funds for continuing medical education would be coordinated and overseen.
PhRMA report: Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals
PhRMA report (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America). 2008. Washington, DC: PhRMA.
In its revised code of conduct, PhRMA includes provisions on industry support for continuing educational programs. With an eye to federal kickback laws, it advises companies to separate decision making about educational grants from sales and marketing units and to “develop objective criteria for making CME grant decisions to ensure that . . . the financial support is not an inducement to prescribe or recommend a particular medicine or course of treatment” (PhRMA, 2008). For nonaccredited educational activities, the code provides that the organizers of the activity should control its content, faculty, materials, and similar details. As noted earlier, one pharmaceutical company announced that it would no longer fund educational programs offered by MECCs.
OIG Guidelines: Compliance Program Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
The OIG guidelines recommend (pp. 20–21) that manufacturers:
- separate grant-making functions from sales and marketing functions;
- establish objective criteria for awarding grants that do not take into
account the volume or value of the recipient’s purchases; - establish objective criteria for awarding grants that ensure that the
funded activities are bona fide; and - refrain from controlling speakers or content of educational activi-
ties funded by grants.
