Course Leadership Responsibilities
Course Directors Are Responsible for Assuring that CME Activities Address the Professional Practice Gaps of Physicians, Are Free of Commercial Influence and Are Fiscally Sound.
Who May Serve as Course Directors?
For reasons of financial accountability and adherence to Stanford policies, Course Directors should be full-time physician faculty members employed by the Stanford School of Medicine. Non full-time faculty may be considered for leadership positions based on compelling need; this requires prior approval by the Associate Dean for Postgraduate Medical Education or the Executive Director of the Stanford Center for CME. Community practitioners with voluntary clinical appointments, non physicians and community health partners may participate as a course co-director in concert with a Stanford School of Medicine physician faculty member.
It is expected that Course Directors familiarize themselves with Stanford CME policies including: Commercial Support, Honorarium, Identification and Resolution of Conflicts of Interest and Venue policies which are all found at cme.stanford.edu. The CME staff and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Medical Education are available to answer any questions regarding these policies.
Specific Responsibilities:
- Planning a CME Activity
- Selection of a planning committee to coordinate the activity planning process. Planning committees are usually comprised of 3-5 individuals, but in most cases there should be more than one planner. If the Course Director has a conflict of interest relevant to the subject matter of the activity, at least one planning committee member must be non-conflicted and a content expert. Planners’ conflicts of interest must be disclosed and resolved prior to planning the activity.
- The activity is designed to address identified learning needs of physicians derived from professional practice gaps in knowledge, competence or performance in practice.
- These gaps are substantiated by the target audience, expert opinion, scientific literature, national guidelines, maintenance of certification (MoC) requirements and/or quality improvement data.
- Activity planning is documented in the CME Planning Documentation Worksheet & Application.
- The activity is fiscally sound and honoraria payments comply with Stanford CME policies.
- Content of CME Activity
- The content developed must be objective, balanced, based on valid and sound scientific studies, and free of commercial bias.
- Clinical care recommendations, treatments, or manners of practicing presented in the CME activity are based on evidence that is accepted within the profession of medicine, are not known to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits and are not known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients.
- Disclosures of Relevant Financial Relationships
- Disclosures of relevant financial relationships with any commercial interest must be collected for anyone involved with development and implementation of activity content (planners, speakers, reviewers, moderators, etc.) and sent to the Stanford Center for CME prior to the activity.
- All relevant conflicts of interest must be resolved and documented by the Course Director or designated content expert. If a conflict of interest cannot be resolved, the planner/speaker must be disqualified from participation or CME credit may not be awarded for this presentation.
- Disclosures of relevant financial relationships (or no financial relationships) with commercial interests must be presented to the learners prior to the activity by inclusion in the syllabus, by slide or by posting next to the sign in sheets.
- If during a CME activity, course directors/leaders detect commercial influence, it is their responsibility to discuss this with the learners in order to ensure that a fair and balanced program is in place.
- Review of Presentations
- All presentations must be received and reviewed by the SCCME. Presentations of conflicted speakers must be also reviewed by the designated reviewer and COI resolved prior to the activity. This requires that all presentations (may be a draft) must be submitted to the SCCME no later than 4 weeks prior to the activity. This provides time for review and resolution of any conflicts of interest or HIPAA violations.
- All issues of conflict and potential HIPAA violations must be totally resolved in the final presentation and sent to the SCCME for review no later than seven (7) days prior to the start of the conference.
- Separation of Commercial Activities from Curriculum
- Commercial Interests have no role in the planning or implementation of CME activities. Only when basic science is the topic may a commercial employee present and the presentation must be devoid of any patient recommendations or promotion (e.g. advertising, company logos, product messages) and promotional material must not be displayed or distributed.
Stanford Center for CME September 2012
Stanford University School of Medicine Continuing Medical Education Commercial Support Policy