Medical Education

Continuing Medical Education (CME) events are educational activities designed to maintain, develop, or increase the skills and knowledge of health care professionals. As a service to the medical community, pharmaceutical companies often sponsor CME events that relate to therapeutic areas in which they concentrate. Pharmaceutical companies have felt increasing pressure to provide non-biased information during CME events, to adhere to strict conduct and content guidelines, and to demonstrate an appropriate separation between Medical Educational activities and Sales activities.

Creating and maintaining appropriate relationships with healthcare professionals is important to the integrity of a company’s CME offerings. Pressure to further regulate the pharmaceutical industry’s relationships with healthcare providers has been growing. In response to mounting pressure for standardization of guidelines surrounding pharmaceutical company relationships with healthcare professionals, PhRMA has issued the “PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals.” Further, companies not adhering to strict, compliance-minded policies and procedures are opening the door for other regulatory violations such as off-label promotion.

CIS helps companies develop and/or assess continuing medical education programs. Development and assessment of CME programs is complete, and encompasses all laws, regulations, and guidelines which apply to CME. Further, CIS offers industry knowledge in best practices for aligning CME functions within the business. CIS will help you establish and maintain a CME program that is meaningful and also practical, so that it works with the business to meet the CME needs of your organization and can also be monitored effectively.