The ME department at the DoH is committed to keeping all Continuing Education activities free of commercial interest. To avoid any commercial bias, the ME department maintains absolute control over all CME/CPD activities and makes sure that DoH guidelines and Standards for Commercial Support of CME/CPD are adhered to prior to any activity being awarded Category 1 credit. All records are maintained by the CME/CPD office. The ME department at the DoH adopts the ACCME Standards for CME Commercial Support. Compliance with this process, forms and justification are required as part of the CME process.

Each faculty member and CME planner should review this policy and other documentation (faculty disclosure form and letter of agreement with commercial support) through the CME process, and through consultation with the ME department.

The ME department will accept educational grants from commercial companies for continuing medical education and professional development (CME/CPD) activities under the following guidelines:

• All commercially supported activities are for scientific and educational purposes only and are not to promote any of the company’s products directly or indirectly.
• The CME/CPD activity planners will be responsible for all content and selection of presenters, including moderators.
• The CME/CPD activity content will not be influenced by the supporting company or its agents.
• No promotional activities or product advertisements will be permitted in the same room or featured before, during or after the educational activity.
• The presenter(s) will disclose limitations of data, such as ongoing research, analysis, preliminary data or unsupported opinion.
• Support from any commercial company must be in the form of an educational grant made payable to the CME/CPD activity planners. Grant support may never be made payable to any presenter/moderator. The provider will negotiate all payment arrangements with the presenter/moderator.
• A commercial company representative and the CME coordinator or designee must sign the official form called the Letter of Agreement.
• DoH Standards for Commercial Support of CME/CPD activities will be adhered to.
• Publicity for the activity will include statements of support by a commercial company, where the company name, rather than a product, is to be mentioned.
• At the time of the meeting, a full disclosure, either verbally or in writing, of each company providing a grant is to be included.
• There will not be any commercial exhibits, booths or other giveaways such as pens, pads, etc. allowed at any time in the meeting room.
• Each participant will be asked to evaluate if the activity is free from commercial bias.

The ME department, in reviewing the CME/CPD Evaluation Summary report and/or the monitoring report will discuss the speakers’ compliance with commercial support guidelines. This will be based on the monitoring report or whether 10% or more of participants indicate there was commercial bias in the presentation, which will be interpreted as non-compliance with these guidelines.

In the event an activity has been determined to be non-compliant, letters shall be sent to the activity planner and the faculty of speakers informing them of the findings of the ME department. The DoH has the authority to withhold or withdraw an organizer’s/speaker’s privilege to designate activities for DoH Category 1 credit. Decisions may be appealed to the ME department at the DoH. The speakers and/or planners shall not be considered for future CME activities. The period of ineligibility will be linked directly to the degree of violations.