Policies

The University of Rochester’s Office for Continuing Medical Education (CME) strictly adheres to the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. The Office for CME’s policies surrounding identifying, mitigating and disclosing relevant financial relationships, content validity and commercial support in accredited continuing education are derived from the ACCME’s Standards. For a detailed description visit the ACCME’s website. The policies below apply to all continuing medical education activities that are awarded AMA PRA Category 1 credit™ by the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

• The University of Rochester’s Office for CME will provide a process for identifying, and mechanisms for mitigating relevant financial relationships prior to awarding AMA PRA Category 1 credit for CME activities.
• Anyone in a position to control the content of a proposed CME activity will complete a Planner/Presenter Financial Relationships Form.
• The primary responsibility to identify, address and mitigate any relevant financial relationships belong to the Activity Director.
• The presence or absence of all relevant financial relationships must be disclosed to learners prior to the activity.
• The use of owners and employees of ACCME-defined ineligible companies as faculty and planners or in other roles where they are in a position to control the content of accredited CME is prohibited, except in limited and specific situations. For more information, please visit Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.
• When mitigating relevant financial relationships, the mitigation strategy must be appropriate to the person’s role in the activity (e.g. planner or presenter), and the mitigation must be implemented before each person takes on their role.

ACCME Standard 1: Ensure Content is Valid

Accredited providers are responsible for ensuring that their education is fair and balanced and that any clinical content presented supports safe, effective patient care.

1. All recommendations for patient care in accredited continuing education must be based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning, while giving a fair and balanced view of diagnostic and therapeutic options.
2. All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in accredited education in support or justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
3. Although accredited continuing education is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics, these areas need to be clearly identified as such within the program and individual presentations. It is the responsibility of accredited providers to facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting, practices that are not, or not yet, adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning.
4. Organizations cannot be accredited if they advocate for unscientific approaches to diagnosis or therapy, or if their education promotes recommendations, treatment, or manners of practicing healthcare that are determined to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits or are known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients.

The Office for CME's Presenter Content Form is used to collect information about presentation content, ensure content is valid, and prevent commercial bias. This form also includes best practices for faculty when presenting content in accredited CE.

• If your program intends to seek support from ineligible companies* please contact the Office for CME to discuss the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence, educational grants and/or commercial exhibits for upcoming conferences.
• All CME educational grant requests must be reviewed by the Office for CME staff prior to submission and when a request for grant funding has been approved. Please review the Grant Application Protocol document for instructions and details.
• Additionally, the University of Rochester has guidelines for interactions with Industry Representative for all Personnel of the University of Rochester Medical Center and its affiliates: UR Policy on Industry Interactions.

*Ineligible companies are those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.