Accredited providers will be responsible for offering corrective information to learners, faculty and planners if an activity is found to break rules for independence, freedom from commercial bias or content validation, ACCME said.
Providers will determine how to communicate the information and are under no obligation to say that they are doing so because the activity was found noncompliant. Nor will learner credits be revoked.
“The idea is not to make the learners further victim of biased information,” Dr. Murray Kopelow, ACCME chief executive, told MM&M. Besides, he pointed out, the AMA PRA Category 1 credit system is the sole purview of the American Medical Association.
Providers must also issue a corrective statement to the ACCME, including a report of the information transmitted.
The policy change was adopted at the council’s November 2010 board meeting and will be implemented going forward, following internal review and a public comment period that ended in September.
It’s the second refinement ACCME has made this year to the Complaints and Inquiries process, which it uses to investigate criticisms lodged against activities. In July, the council decided, based on stakeholder feedback, that accredited med ed providers who break the rules should not be identified, unless changes in their accreditation status occur. The community had voted overwhelmingly in favor of discretion during the adjudication process.
From the February 01, 2011 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
