CME Guidelines Pave The Way For New Strategies In 2005.

As regulatory pressures increase for commercial sponsors to limit their involvement in Continuing Medical Education (CME), pharmaceutical companies and commercial sponsors are finding they need to take a new approach to planning and delivering CME. A recent analysis from Manhattan Research, LLC, a healthcare marketing information and services firm, finds that the online CME (a.k.a. electronic CME or eCME market continues to grow–providing a prime opportunity for commercial sponsors to redirect funds from offline traditional venues to online channels for 2005.

In September 2004, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) approved guidelines designed to ensure CME independence from commercial bias. The guidelines require speakers and planners to disclose financial ties to pharmaceutical and medical device companies—and to bar speakers with relevant connections from presenting recommendations. Many in the industry are concerned that offline CME will become less effective when speakers with industry ties are pulled from the roster, the Manhattan Research study points out.

“Two forces are clearly at work: market forces that are shifting physicians to the online sector, and policy forces that are limiting options for offline CME,” says Erika Fishman, Senior Analyst at Manhattan Research. “With the alignment of these two forces, it’s an ideal time for proactive pharmaceutical companies to leverage the Internet as a strategic channel for CME—capitalizing on its timeliness, variety, effectiveness, and potential for innovation.”

Although others have conducted studies looking at top-line eCME stats, the Manhattan Research eCME Research Module provides an in-depth analysis of sub-segments of eCME users and future intenders by Rx profile, reliance on eCME versus offline CME, and percent of total CME hours conducted online. Three top-line findings from the study include:

• The eCME market is steadily growing, with 423,000 physicians using eCME in 2004—an increase of 14% from the previous year.

• An additional 79,000 physicians report interest in using eCME in the future, with more than a quarter of these physicians being female.

• Almost one fifth of physicians browsing CME (i.e., not receiving CME credit) for more than half of their eCME report a need to make options easier to find, while those more likely to receive credit for eCME report a need for increased variety of CME content online.

The pharmaceutical industry can highlight the advantages of eCME by focusing on interactivity and personalization, the study concludes. At the same time, vendors must focus on creating expanded content and eCME directories, with simple navigation and streamlined registration to maximize physician participation.