The Accreditation Council for CME has issued a call for comment on a proposal to further limit interactions between accredited providers and commercial supporters. The new rules would stipulate that accredited providers could not receive communications from commercial interests announcing specific content/therapeutic areas that are available for CME funding or receive communications regarding companies' internal criteria for providing grants.

The ACCME has also issued a call for comment on a proposal for a new model of commercial support. Under the recommended paradigm, educational needs would have to be identified and verified by organizations that do not receive commercial support and are free of financial relationships with industry, such as government agencies; CME activities would have to address professional practice gaps that are corroborated by "bona fide" performance measurements such as those done by the National Quality Forum; content would have to align with curricula specified by "bona fide organizations" such as the American Medical Association and the American Board of Medical Specialties; and activities would have to be verified as free of commercial bias.

The ACCME is accepting comments on these proposals through August 11. For more information, visit www.accme.org.

Medical Meetings magazine will do its part to encourage debate by including discussion of these proposals in an upcoming issue. To contribute your comments or participate in an interview, please contact Tamar Hosansky at thosansky@meetingsnet.com.

In more news, the ACCME has strengthened its oversight structure, speeding up the process whereby providers found in noncompliance must submit improvement plans and verify their progress. The ACCME is also imposing tougher sanctions--the percentage of providers put on probation has increased from 1 percent to 10 percent.

In addition, the ACCME’s upcoming initiatives include developing a system for monitoring activities on-site and mandating that providers measure activities for commercial bias and content validity.