CME Grassroots Advocacy Conference Call Discussion Points

July 8, 2010

• Alicia Sutton opened the meeting with a call for a grassroots movement so that more people understand the impact and importance of CME.
• Lawrence Sherman discussed the individual efforts, but no grassroots movement. Not bound by an organization, but may be as a supplement. Doesn’t matter how, just that advocacy does happen.
• Campaign that aligns CME with Public Health
  • Susan Yarborough: Long overdue. Public hasn’t connected the dots.
  • Story telling a key part of it. Abuse stories are catchy and gaining traction. Data is not what people remember—they remember stories
  • Damon: People who are advocating against commercial support recognize that it is about perception. Any campaign has to address the willingness to accept perception and not evidence. Retractors are very comfortable with blending the issues of marketing and CME.
• Thoughts about reaching out to patients through clinicians
  • Akin to consumer advertising
  • Messaging not as much the issues, but how to deliver to patients via MD.
  • One of the many delivery channels that can be explored.
• What does the average MD think about this?
  • Are they paying attention?
  • They need to be educated. Does the average MD understand the different between CME and promotion?
• There an opportunity to link MOC with need for CME—how will this be paid for?
• What is the call to action?
  • Tool: Why CME matters. What is the benefit?
  • Tool: Ask me how many CME hours I got last year. Ask me why it matters.
• Brian McGowan: Number of advocacy committee struggling to find engagement across the different groups. Has been trying to determine the common themes across the groups.
  • CME advocate blog exists (www.cmeadvocate.com) - is the LinkedIn group a better platform to centralize our efforts
    • Proposing to use to collate information where everyone has access and can draw their own conclusions
  • Developing a possible contest regarding storytelling to provide some personal stories that reflect individuality.
  • Challenges that Alliance faces a broad constituency
  • As Norm Kahn says, "Stories trump data."
  • Need to emotionally connect with people through stories about the value of CME, the value of commercial support. Otherwise difficult to convey why they should pick up the torch.
• As part the activity evaluation: Do you have a story of how this CME impacted a patient’s life?
• Need to capitalize on the multiple calls to action and unify them.

Action steps:

• Consider points discussed as the beginning of a vision
• Think of stories and possible crossover with Medical Meetings: Timeline for announcement process for Medical Meetings would be August. Need to confirm criteria.
• What is the call to action? Think through calls to action.
• Reconvene in a week to discuss points.