Hopkins CME Blog

Recently the Institute of Medicine (IOM) elected three additional Hopkins faculty to its membership. This is always a great honor and we are quite fortunate to have a number of our faculty serving with the IOM. Each of these new members is a true expert in their own right and will certainly contribute significantly to the IOM mission. It is especially gratifying for me, given the inclusion of Peter Pronovost as I have been honored to have served as one of Peter’s mentors for the last decade.

CONGRATULATIONS!

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/johns_hopkins_scientists_elected_into_institute_of_medicine

We are pleased to announce that our Associate Dean & Director, Todd Dorman, MD has been promoted to the position of Senior Associate Dean for Education Coordination (SADEC). His duties will focus on integrating and coordinating the activities among all the various SOM offices that handle education-related matters (including UME, GME & CME). The immediate focus will be on those offices that utilize IT functions (i.e., Office of Academic Computing, Office of IT, Office of Curriculum, Financial Aid, and Admissions). Dr. Dorman will remain the Associate Dean and Director for CME.

Over the course of the next few months we will begin a search for an Assistant Dean to join our leadership team.

Stay tuned for more updates!

As reported a few weeks ago, the next step in our reaccreditation process is an interview with ACCME surveyors that will give us an opportunity to clarify any questions they may have on the documents we submitted in July and to provide additional details as needed.

That interview is now scheduled for Monday, November 14. The ACCME typically conducts these interviews via conference call but we requested (and were granted) a face-to-face meeting in our office in Baltimore. We are looking forward to this opportunity to showcase our CME program.

As previously reported, after the interview the accreditation process will become internal to ACCME and we will be notified of results and accreditation status in March 2012.

This week as been an eventful one here at OCME. On Tuesday, we experienced a 5.8 magnitude earthquake, one of the strongest ones to ever occur in the state of Maryland. Saturday brought Hurricane Irene. Other than a good shaking and a few leaks, we are happy to say we got through both events with no damage, and no changes to our scheduled activities.

Johns Hopkins certified CME activities do not include presentations from individuals serving on Speaker’s Bureaus. Allow me to elucidate.

A few years ago, Johns Hopkins passed a new policy that defined a specific type of speaker’s bureau and banned our faculty from participating in such an activity. The definition of a speaker’s bureau is important because it’s the construct of the expected relationship with a commercial entity that is important. Furthermore, if we simply banned speaker’s bureaus, the world could simply start to call them something different. The Johns Hopkins University School Of Medicine Policy on Speaking for Industry

Importantly, the policy stated that participation in such an activity was felt to be unprofessional. The speaker in such an activity is actually an employee of the commercial interest and as such utilizes materials fully prepared by that interest or at a minimum utilizes materials in which the speaker does not have the final editorial determination. Some individuals refer to this as ghost presenting.

About a year and half after the above policy went into effect for Hopkins faculty, OCME implemented an extension of said policy such that no faculty of a certified CME activity should be a member of a speaker’s bureau. We allowed time for the implementation as many activities are planned far in advance of their launch date. That policy is now in effect for all activities organized through our office with the only exception explained below.

As Johns Hopkins expands, OCME may become the accredited provider for additional facilities joining the health system. As we do, we will again permit a phase in-period for this policy to take effect for only those activities principally orchestrated in partnership with a specific new health system entity. The phase will not be longer than a year and we will work with any of these new entities to achieve full compliance even sooner if possible.

Ultimately all certified CME offered by Johns Hopkins will avoid individuals who participate in speaker’s bureaus. OCME remains fully dedicated to high-quality evidence-based education that meets or exceeds all established standards.