The American Neurological Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. As such, we must comply with the ACCME’s polices governing the planning and implementation of continuing medical education. To follow is some helpful information, definitions and policies to aid us in this quest and to assist you in understanding your critical role in our collective success.
Definition of CME: Continuing medical education consists of educational activities which serve to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance and relationships that a physician uses to provide services for patients, the public, or the profession. The content of CME is that body of knowledge and skills generally recognized and accepted by the profession as within the basic medical sciences, the discipline of clinical medicine, and the provision of health care to the public.
Content Validity: Accredited providers are responsible for ensuring that their education is fair and balanced and that any clinical content presented supports safe, effective patient care.
- All recommendations for patient care in accredited continuing education must be based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning, while giving a fair and balanced view of diagnostic and therapeutic options.
- All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in accredited education in support or justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
- Although accredited continuing education is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics, these areas need to be clearly identified as such within the program and individual presentations. It is the responsibility of accredited providers to facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting, practices that are not, or not yet, adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning.
- Organizations cannot be accredited if they advocate for unscientific approaches to diagnosis or therapy, or if their education promotes recommendations, treatment, or manners of practicing healthcare that are determined to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits or are known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients.
Please see the ACCME’s Standards for Ensuring Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education: https://www.accme.org/accreditation-rules/standards-for-integrity-indep… for full details. Contact jhurley@myana.org, if you have any questions or concerns about the ANA's adherance to these requirements.
ANA’s Policy to Maintain the Integrity of Accredited CME
Planning and implementing activities to advance the practice and research of our neurologist-members requires diligence, skill, and adequate resources. The value industry supporters and sponsors bring to ANA allows us to recruit top researchers and professionals in the field to educate members attending our events, and provide adequate space and resources for these educational activities to occur. Managing use of the funding supplied by commercial supporters, advertisers, exhibiters, and sponsors requires a delicate balance between maintaining purity and sterility of education, while at the same time offering value to those organizations that provide much-needed funding for our events. To guide us in this quest, we have developed this policy.
At the highest level, ANA meticulously adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Ensuring Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education: https://www.accme.org/accreditation-rules/standards-for-integrity-indep…. These standards dictate that at a fundamental level, accredited CME must be provided in a sterile environment. Promotion, solicitation, branding, or alike is strictly prohibited in any location (whether it be virtual or real-world) where CME is provided; this especially pertains to ACCME-defined ineligible companies[1]. More specifically, ANA outlines the following:
- ANA defines the CME Activity as the educational sessions conducted during the annual membership meeting, or activities provided via the website online education center.
- Meals that occur in the same space just prior to, during or immediately after the CME activity are considered part of the CME activity and may not include any commercial interest branding.
- ANA does not consider social/networking events or meals held outside of the CME Activity to be a part of the CME activity. These must adhere to the ACCME Standards for separation.
- ANA makes all decisions regarding disbursement of funds to pay all expenses for the meeting.
- ANA does not apply funding received from ACCME-defined ineligible companies to subsidize fees for meeting attendees, travel, lodging or other attendance at the event. Travel scholarships for member attendees are paid out of the registration fees or through allocation of member dues, as part of a scholarship program that is core to the mission of the organization.
- ANA may use commercial support to pay for speaker expenses and honoraria, but the funder has no opportunity to affect who or how much is received, and there is no mechanism to track specifically what income is used to pay for which speaker’s expenses, barring the supporter from specifying a dollar allocation to a specific individual.
- ANA does use funding from all sources (commercial and non-commercial) to pay for meals offered during the CME event, but these are buffet-style offerings and not offered as a mechanism for any organization to market or otherwise promote their products.
- If ANA supplies an attendee list to an organization, it is accompanied by an appropriate use agreement and do so in accordance with ACCME Standards.
- ANA does not host social events or meals that compete with education.
- Employees of commercial supporters and sponsors, while entitled to attend CME events as learners, are prohibited from soliciting members or handing out materials, giveaways in any area where CME is being held.
- Employees of commercial supporters and/or sponsors are prohibited from being in control of CME, as per ACCME Standards.
- Individuals wishing to participate as planners, faculty, and/or reviewers for CME receiving non-salary remuneration from commercial supporters or sponsors are required to disclose this to ANA, at which point ANA will work with the individual to determine the degree to which they may participate in CME planning and implementation, and if and how these relationships are disclosed to learners.
- ANA designates spaces to be used for promotion, exhibiting, and/or advertising; these are maintained as separate and distinct areas, either on the website or during live events, and there is no contamination between these spaces and those where CME is offered or provided.
- Commercial supporters and sponsors, while they may advertise, promote, and/or solicit in the exhibit hall or public spaces, are prohibited from any of these activities in the areas where CME is provided. ANA leadership designees monitor the educational spaces to ensure compliance.
- The source of support for CME activities is disclosed to the learners prior to the start of CME activities. This disclosure will not contain any logos, trade messages, or branding or any sort. Disclosure of funding is accomplished by listing, in plain text font, the organizations providing funding or in-kind support on an ANA provided slide for live presentations or on a page preceding the online education. ANA leadership designees monitor the educational spaces to ensure compliance.
- Any organizations providing commercial support or sponsorship funding for CME are required to sign and adhere to the associated agreements.
- All materials used as a part of the education will adhere to ANA’s templates and standards, and further, no logos, branding, trade messages, or alike are permitted on any materials used in conjunction with a CME activity or distributed as a part of an activity. ANA leadership designees monitor the educational spaces to ensure compliance.
[1] A ineligible company is any entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients. https://www.accme.org/accreditation-rules/standards-for-integrity-indep…