AOE Compliance Connection

Welcome to AOE’s September 2024 edition of AOE Compliance Connection, our monthly newsletter. As we are diving into fall, we hope your entire CE team is excited about a new season of education, initiatives, and CE community progress. In this newsletter, we bring you a host of valuable tools: 1) a summary of the ACCME’s stance on online and social media platforms for CE, 2) a helpful guide on knowing when a financial relationship is relevant, and 3) AOE’s practical analysis of the 2024 ACCME Data Report. Make sure you’re following us on social media so you don’t miss helpful weekly tips and compliance updates!

One year ago, in September 2023, the ACCME published a call for comment regarding online and social media platforms for accredited education. The goal was to invite guidance and feedback from stakeholders regarding the rapidly evolving practice of using applications and social media as a vehicle for accredited CE and also to help the ACCME more clearly develop policies and structure to guide providers in their development and delivery of these type of initiatives.

Earlier this month, the ACCME published an Executive Summary of the 215 responses it received via the online survey and via email, including quantitative and qualitative feedback. Their overall summary is that “in general, respondents support the expectations and proposed platform but expressed a variety of concerns about the practical implementation and presented an array of potential unintended consequences of crafting additional regulations in this area.”

In response, the ACCME crafted a collection of frequently asked questions specifically related to online and social media platform CE, including questions such as special requirements, necessary steps before posting, protection of learners from promotion, and best practices regarding posted videos.

The six-page summary can be read in full here, and the FAQs relating to online and social media platform can be found here.

Dion Richetti, ACCME’s Vice President of Accreditation and Recognition, recently published a helpful and relevant compliant tip to assist CE providers. He poses the question, “When is a financial relationship relevant?”

Often, providers, planners, and even faculty mistakenly believe that simply because no compromising products are mentioned, there is not a relevant financial relationship to identify and mitigate. However, this isn’t true. Richetti clarifies that CME content “does not have to explicitly mention or promote the business lines or products of an ineligible company for there to be an opportunity for bias”.

He reminds providers that when Standard 3 requires providers to identify relevant relationships, it is asking them to base relevancy on the concept of being “related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company”. So even if a presentation doesn’t directly mention the product, it could still be related to them and qualify as a conflict of interest and source of bias. The metric Richetti proposes is this: “If a person has the opportunity to sway a learner, intentionally or unintentionally, toward the products of the company they have a relationship with”. If this turns out to be the case, providers would need to move forward with mitigation and resolution as per usual.

Richetti points providers to this webpage for some helpful examples of content that is or is not related to the ineligible company.

The ACCME’s 2023 Annual Report data was released on August 15, 2024. The report highlights continued growth in the accredited CE enterprise and emphasizes how the community continues to produce diverse, quality educational content which fosters a culture of lifelong learning. Accredited providers continue to innovate and rise to meet the educational needs of physicians and other healthcare professionals. The report analyzed data from 1,602 accredited CE providers who offered, collectively, approximately 247,000 CE activities.

AOE’s analysis of the report is available here and contains helpful summaries, infographics, and easy-to-digest bullet points of relevant information!

Big Picture 2023 Statistics:

• Accredited educational activities increased by 7.31% in 2023, and overall learner interaction increased by 27.44%.
• Physician participation at CE activities increased by 22.36%, while non-physician participation increased by
  30.83%.
• Total commercial support decreased by 4.02%, an estimated $36 million.
• Income from advertising/exhibits increased to $668 million in 2023, a 4.49% increase from 2022.
• Total annual income for CE increased by $150 million, a 4.42% increase from 2022.

Overall, providers continue to recognize the value of interprofessional continuing education. The number of providers accredited by Joint Accreditation increased from 146 in 2022 to 169 in 2023 (15.75% increase). The ACCME’s report confirms the accredited CE enterprise continues to make available high-quality CE activities that promote interprofessional learning and improvements across learners’ competence and performance leading to improved patient outcomes.

• ABMS Conference 2024
  September 24-26, 2024, Chicago, IL
  Read More >>
• 2024 Joint Accreditation Leadership Summit
  September 30-October 1, 2024, Virtual Live
  Read More >>
• CMEpalooza Fall 2024
  October 16, 2024, Virtual Live
  Read More >>
• Learn to Thrive PLUS
  October 29, 2024, Virtual Live
  Read More >>
• ANCC NCPD Summit
  October 28-29, 2024, New Orleans, LA
  Read More >>
• ANA 2024 National MagPath Conference
  October 30-November 1, 2024, New Orleans, LA
  Read More >>
• MAACME 2024 Annual Conference
  November 12-13, 2024, Chicago, IL
  Read More >>
• ACPE CPE Provider Conference
  November 18-20, 2024, Chicago, IL
  Read More >>