Keywords::
The European CME Forum (ECF) and the Union Europeenne Des Medecins Specialistes/European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (UEMS-EACCME), both dedicated to European CME/CPD, invited key stakeholders to their respective meetings in Amsterdam and Brussels, both scheduled within a week of each other in November 2011.
The ECF's 4th annual meeting addressed key themes and challenges in providing CME/CPD. A broad range of topics around CME planning, needs assessment, outcomes evaluation, the role and contribution of sponsors as well as international best practice were discussed. Stakeholders from commercial and non-commercial organisations, the pharmaceutical and medical device industry and national bodies in CME, representing providers, sponsors or accreditors were invited to share their perspectives and contributed to highly interactive presentations, workshops and panel discussions. For the first time, the Good CME Practice Group—a European group of CME providers represented by its founding members—introduced four guiding principles on good CME that went through a rigorous consultation process earlier this year. The principles were about planning, balance, transparency and effectiveness. The group chose an innovative setting: a round-table discussion to review a realistic business case scenario in order to put the new guidance into context and perspective. Interestingly, some fairly experienced stakeholders struggled with basic principles such as the definition of appropriate learning objectives. Another highlight was the announcement regarding the launch of the Journal of European CME (JECME). The journal is addressing a significant need for sharing best practice and evidence in CME/CPD in the respective geographic area. The ECF demonstrated that its founders truly understand the needs of their audience and how to convert that into a valuable, engaging and educational meeting format. What many may have not recognised yet is that the ECF became a not-for-profit organisation earlier this year. Unfortunately, the opportunity of converting it into a membership organisation that gains political weight and stronger reputation has been missed.
The UEMS-EACCME meeting was quite a contrast to the ECF meeting. About 150 stakeholders, the majority being members of UEMS and the rest mainly representing commercial CME providers, participated in the very first meeting run by UEMS on the subject of CME/CPD that was open to a broader audience. As stated by a former UEMS board member in an informal setting, one of the reasons for this meeting was to demonstrate the ability of UEMS-EACCME to run valuable events on CME. I can only speculate, but probably this internal focus was too predominant. What we experienced was a rather traditional meeting format, in content and design. It was only a one-day agenda, with similar stories throughout the day to the ones we have heard from UEMS-EACCME executives for many years. The only truly interactive lecture was a question-and-answer session on the newly announced standards for live events and e-learning. The standards are still lacking guidance in the most critical areas: appropriate methodologies for educational needs assessment and key techniques for evaluating achieved outcomes. The two groups, commercial providers and CME reviewers of UEMS boards – that have rarely found an opportunity for real dialogue at present and in the past – were clearly separated out during the breakout session. Fortunately, some providers did not follow the guidance and had a rather emotional, but very appropriate discussion on the role and responsibility of CME providers versus medical programme directors. The responsibility and the different role of a CME provider versus a meeting organiser are not yet well understood. Probably, this was the key highlight of this meeting.
What Europe has experienced in a decade of UEMS-EACCME leadership in CME is an unintended proof of management experience: harmonisation can become a true barrier to evolution, progress and effectiveness of a diverse organisation, if the focus shifts too much away from strategic objectives. It finally results with stakeholder and interest groups justifying themselves in endless discussions. True leadership sets inspiring and challenging objectives and makes stakeholder groups move towards a common goal. For an organisation claiming to be a leader in CME in Europe, where key stakeholders and board representatives are still publically stating that there is no real evidence on the value of CME, one of the key priorities must be to make the existing evidence visible to the wider audience and push towards evaluating achieved outcomes. Fortunately, the new Secretary General demonstrated openness to criticism and dialogue and announced the new paradigm of UEMS- EACCME being dedicated to evolve CME in Europe. A high ambition, but one truly welcomed by many stakeholders. There is some hope that the new UEMS-EACCME leadership finally will be able to address the needs of some key markets such as France, Germany and Italy that still do not see tangible value in contractual agreements between UEMS-EACCME and local authorities.
Europe now has two CME leaders in pole position. ECF is still fairly young, politically fragile and does not represent a formal membership base. The founders are truly dedicated to the interests and needs of the meeting participants and to the provision of guidance for evolving CME. UEMS-EACCME is the politically robust and established membership organisation, but struggling to represent key markets and organisations and truly evolving CME/CPD as expected of a leader. The sweet spot could be striking a synergy between both organisations: a truly inspiring UEMS-EACCME with an administrative unit at arm's length from the membership organisation collaborating with the ECF organisation. This model could be suited for an all-embracing leadership in European CME/CPD and build an organisation of global impact. Is this too ambitious for Europe?
Declaration of interest
Funding
No commercial support was provided for this manuscript.
Author(s) Financial Disclosure
T.K. has disclosed that he is an employee of Axdev Europe.
Peer Reviewers Financial Disclosure
Peer Reviewer 1 has disclosed that he/she has no relevant financial relationships.
Peer Reviewer 2 has disclosed that he/she has no relevant financial relationships.