"We must build common ground, work in a collaborative and cross-functional manner, and create the right mind-set and behaviors to bring about change," said Fred Hassan, president and CEO of Pharmacia Corp. Hassan’s comments were delivered during his keynote speech at the 13th Annual Conference of the National Task Force on CME Provider/Industry Collaboration, held at the Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel September 10 to 12. "We need to leverage the strength of the CME community" if stakeholders are to achieve their common goals of improving healthcare and lowering its costs.
It was an unusual move to invite someone of Hassan’s stature in the pharma industry to be keynote speaker, but the American Medical Association’s choice this year was a deliberate underscoring of the meeting’s theme of collaboration between all the many stakeholders in CME. "Everyone has to feel they’re a part of the system," Hassan said. "Industry is a vital stakeholder. There is a genuine commitment from industry to improve CME," he insisted. "We can come forward to do more."
The collaboration message reverberated with the meeting’s record 448 registrants, who over the course of the conference learned how all the various regulatory, accreditation, certification, credentialing, licensure, and commercial support segments factor into the current state of CME. And even more important, they learned how vital it is for all involved to work together to combine their strengths, streamline the system, and ultimately move CME to the forefront of efforts to improve the healthcare system. While much of the conference put a new collaborative spin on evergreen topics like commercial support ethical considerations, maintenance of certification, and practice-based learning, it also highlighted several new developments in the world of CME.
For more on this conference, look for the December issue of Medical Meetings.
