Friday, October 15, 2010

Advocacy Efforts Supporting Industry Collaboration in CME #cmetaskforce

Today is the last day of the 21st Annual Conference Of The National Task Force On CME Provider/Industry Collaboration. The Shickman Panel was titled, "Advocacy Efforts Supporting Industry Collaboration in CME." How often do you find yourself defending CME?

Moderator: Brian McGowan, PhD; Pfizer Inc

Panelists:
  • John Kamp, PhD, JD; Coalition for Healthcare Communication
  • Brad Bednarz, Chief Strategy Officer at Visible Productions
  • Lois Colburn; Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME)
  • Michael Weber, MD; Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE)
  • Christopher Bolwell; National Association of Medical Education Companies (NAMEC)
  • Jann Balmer, PhD; Alliance for Continuing Medical Education (ACME)
  • Norman B. Kahn, Jr., MD; Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS)
What is the true value of CME?
In the past, CME was "trust me, I'm keeping up..." Now, CME has evolved dramatically and it focuses on patient outcomes, physician performance, and the application of the latest evidence. There are opportunities to develop advocacy efforts around the intersection of public health, patient safety, and improved quality.
There is such criticism regarding commercially supported CME. What is the value proposition of commercially supported CME?
There is no way to reform health care unless health care providers have access to CME. Without support from industry, there is no way to provide the volume of education that is required. Commercial support can allow CME providers to develop and deliver innovative CME that can truly impact patient care. Commercial support decreases the time it takes to disseminate the latest scientific information. It also increases the appropriate practice of medicine. It enhances the scalability of CME.
There are organizational advocacy efforts within each of these organizations. But, the overwhelming majority of CME professionals are not aware of all these initiatives. The CME community needs to collaborate to share this information with all the stakeholders in the CME enterprise. We need to build an advocate base so that we can share these stories that demonstrate the value of CME. There are many opportunities to work on advocacy efforts, so let's share those success stories.

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