Webinar Questions & Answers

Q1. Does the AACME have a position on the use of the terms "restricted" or "unrestricted" educational grants?”

Answer:The academy does not have a position on these terms and would refer to as supported by an independent grant from (here listing the commercial supporter).

Q2. Can you please provide a statement of your interpretation of commercial interest.

Answer: Here the challenge is to more clearly describe the term marketing.  After a thorough review of ACCME policies and interpretations, this could be seen as anyone that performs any function for a commercial interest which is not a certified activity.  Marketing could be perceived as advisory boards, investigator meetings, promotional speakers bureaus and so on.  The Academy with the North American Association of Medical Education and Communication Companies NAAMECC and the Coalition for Healthcare Communication are in regular communication with ACCME for further clarification here, though we feel that this will remain very restrictive.

Q3.  Does the firewall need to rise above the content and creative staff, and effect the managing partners or strategic leaders of the two companies?

Answer: As long as managing partners or strategic leaders are not involved in the planning, programming or content of individual activities either in promotion or education then we would say no. 

Q4.  Re firewalls: Can you please comment on staffers involved in art?  Production?  Project management? (when project management is logistically oriented)?

Answer: Great care will be needed to ensure that these departments are truly only logistically orientated.  It would be very easy for an art department, production group or project manager to become biased if they work on any ‘educational’ program component, such as a diagrammatical representation of a mechanism of action or with an overlap in speaker selection in production.  The acceptability of this will be dependent on its individual set up and will need to be determined on a case by case basis. 

Q5.  With regard to level of evidence, how do you view abstracts or posters presented at scientific meetings?

Answer: Though these have been allowed in the past, the Academy will no longer allow to be used as reference unless they have been subject to peer review and approved for presentation at a scientific meeting.

Q6. With the newly issued guidance from the ACCME, how do you believe this will impact educational funding from commercial supporters?

Answer: In large the funding from commercial supporters does seem to be in decline, though some sources are clearly rising.  We believe much of this decline is from a failure to provide educational outcomes data in terms that supporters can use to justify the expenditure.  The Academy will be engaging in discussion here to explore values that will be acceptable across all educational communities, patient, learner, teacher and supporter.

Q7.   How do you balance the needs of a Commercial Interest to fund education that furthers (rather than refutes) their product/service with the need to not allow CI's to influence content?

Answer: We will not allow the commercial interest to influence content.  However commercials supporters have the right to only support activities in areas where they have an interest.

We should be looking for support in areas where there is an overlap between independently identified patient and healthcare provider needs, a performance gap, and therapeutic interests in that same area from a commercial supporter.  Other supporters, which could be defined as non-commercial should also be considered where this overlap may also occur.

Q8.  Cognizant of the amount of time is needed to prepare proposals.  How much time should be planned for development and submission?

Answer: Ideally, as much time as possible.  In many cases we should ideally be determining an overall educational strategy to facilitate change, towards narrowing a healthcare gap.  This will often require collaborative efforts, which with the support of the Academy can be effectively facilitated.

In saying this we also have to consider the budget cycles of supporters and the inevitable fast track requirements under some circumstances.  If possible a prior ‘heads-up’ to the Academy will help facilitate a rapid cycle.

Q9.   How about writers – independent contractors? Can they work on both
CME and non-CME material?

Answer: Unfortunately, this is not as yet clear; we have a query with the ACCME and are awaiting a response.  Our ‘gut’ feeling is that this will not be acceptable.

Q10. Most commercial supporters inquire about "reach" during grant review,  how do you define "reach"?  Is it simply based on "hits" or "activity completions?

Answer: There are two common questions here; firstly, what is the target audience number to whom the activity will be announced.  The second is how many individuals are expected to participate in the program.  Now participation needs to be further defined, did the individual just browse content or did they complete the program. 

The Academy defines reach by completion, and the number of certificates issued, we do understand that this is very likely to be an underestimation as not all participants who complete a program will request certification.  The Academy will also be exploring further aspects in regard to reach on web based programming where a learner’s movement through the site may be a better indication of applicability.

Q11. What if you receive funding prior to developing a comprehensive proposal?

Answer: As the funding is provided as an independent grant, it is assumed that the supporter considered the proposal in sufficient detail to approve and fund.  We have not encountered where a grant was provided prior to approval of a proposal.

Q12. Do you foresee some type of standardization of pricing? For example a satellite symposium. Also do you foresee an industry standard for the ratio of development costs to pass through costs?

Answer: No, though costing breakdowns are being examined for areas where certain costs are expected.  As grant reviewers see a great number of programs they do become familiar with the costs of program components, such as room hires at particular venues, AV charges and so on.

Q13.  How can MECCs identify when they are being asked to submit a grant to simply have it used for "vetting" purposes?  More and more, commercial supporters have identified an academic provider they intend to provide funding to but often are required internally to receive/review upward of 3-to-5 grants or more.

Answer: This will be very difficult to determine, although it would be acceptable to query the commercial interest on how the review process is managed and if in fact the requirement exists requiring multiple organizations submitting proposals.

Q14. One large pharma company has included an outcomes vendor in their LOA. Is this compliant?

Answer: According to ACCME, this is not acceptable.