Here are two interesting perspectives on industry/HCP interactions, including the commercial support of CME:

Appetite for Instruction: Why Big Pharma should buy your doctor lunch sometimes, by Jessica Wapner at Slate.com

Bought and Sold: Who Should Pay for CME, by Mark Crislip at Science-Based Medicine

Eugene Pozniak, Managing Director of Siyemi Learning and Programme Director of the European CME Forum on LinkedIn, has chimed in with his impressions of the Global Alliance for Medical Education conference held last month in Montréal. Specifically, he talks about the performance improvement and collaboration focuses that the meeting centered around. It’s a great summary of what I thought was a great meeting.

Check out this video by Medical Meetings columnist and president of Global Education Group Stephen Lewis, who points out a bright side of the otherwise fairly dismal information in the 2009 ACCME data report:

Like most, I was riveted by the pretty startling drops in commercial support and total income, and didn’t think to look at per-HCP costs. Funny how different people bring different perspectives to the same set of data, isn’t it?

But it gets me wondering why the per-HCP cost is decreasing. Is it because of the type of activities (i.e., Internet-based activities instead of live courses)? More HCPs per activity? You’d think it would be increasing, since the cost of everything else is increasing. How are you all able to do this?

The good folks over at Policy and Medicine have put together a handy chart of companies that disclose their educational grant payments for 2009 and 2010.

I read an interesting editorial in yesterday’s Boston Globe about Massachusetts’ $250,000 academic detailing pilot program, and I can’t help but be a tad impressed by it. I know a few years ago there was a lot of talk, if not action, around academic detailing, but I haven’t heard much recently.

Is this a promising direction for CME in the future? If so, who will pay for it? It sounds like some states and countries are willing to invest in it, but with the rate of innovation we have in healthcare, need could quickly overtake the financial resources available. Would docs pay out of pocket for it? Hmm.

There’s been lots of talk lately on the CME LinkedIn group about the need for someone, anyone, to take the lead in advocating the value of continuing medical education.

I think the ACCME is listening. In its June/July e-newsletter, ACCME also announced a survey it’s conducting to find out what accredited CME providers and other CME stakeholders are doing to “promote accredited CME’s value as a strategic priority,” from what you’re doing to what is and isn’t working to get the word out in your own organization, and the world at large. They’re also asking for ideas on how ACCME can “support you in these efforts.” ACCME plans to publish the survey results in an upcoming newsletter.

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Why is it that ACCME always manages to release something juicy either right before or right after Medical Meetings goes off to the printer? Just minutes after all the files were finalized, the June/July edition of The ACCME Report hit my in-box, and it’s crammed full of goodies.

Amongst said goodies is a pdf download link to the Annual Report Data 2009, which gives us a peek into what’s going with with ACCME-accredited providers, plus state- and medical society-accredited providers. I haven’t had a chance to crunch the numbers yet, but others are already on top of it (query: Does anyone else wonder if Thomas Sullivan ever sleeps?).

Just a quick glance at the 2009-2008 numbers tells a story, though:

Total CME income: down almost 8 percent

Commercial support: down almost 18 percent

Number of accredited providers: down by 18

Number of activities: down almost 6 percent

Hours of instruction: down 10 percent

(Here’s a link to our writeup of last year’s report, which wasn’t terribly rosy, either.)

What, me worry?

I know Boston restaurants have been clamoring to repeal the two-year-old Massachusetts Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturer Code of Conduct law, saying it’s hurt their business hugely to lose the doctor dinners. The code restricts informational presentations accompanied by a meal that are sponsored by medical device or drug companies to medical offices, hospitals, or device training facilities—no restaurants allowed (others blame the falloff in restaurant business to the economy, not the law). Economic development folks also wanted it gone, saying it’s been scaring off pharma and bio business: the code also bans companies from providing entertainment or recreational items of any value to HCPs, and giveaways, including pens, coffee mugs, and gift cards, along with fairly strict reporting and disclosure rules around any financial interaction between docs and drug companies.

It sounds like the Mass. House heard them all the way up on Beacon Hill: Yesterday it voted 145-4 to pass an economic development law that included chucking the gift ban. Now it has to be reconciled with an already-passed Senate bill, but I’m guessing that, the economy will trump the perceived need to rein in pharma marketing. My prediction: Given the current economic climate in the Bay state, the pharma gift ban won’t survive whatever final form the law takes.