Conflict of interest and resolution/mitigation process

It is the policy of AO Foundation to strictly follow the standards for integrity and independence in continuing education as defined by accreditation authorities for CME in Europe and North America (EACCME, ACCME) and other relevant regulatory bodies to avoid commercial bias in education.

Identifying and mitigating any potential conflicts of interest based on your disclosure information ensures the academic independence of the AO Foundation educational activities.

A Conflict of Interest is created by ALL financial relationships of a faculty, chairpersons, planner of an educational activity/event within the last 36 months with an ineligible company and the opportunity to impact medical education content.

Any relationship in which the individual benefits by receiving a salary, research funding, royalties, intellectual property rights, consulting fees, honoraria for promotional speakers’ bureau, ownership interest (e.g., stocks, stock options or other ownership interest, excluding diversified mutual funds), or other financial benefits.

Any entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients.

Examples include: Device manufacturers or distributors; manufacturers of health-related wearable products; pharmaceutical companies or distributors; bio-medical startups that have begun a governmental regulatory approval process; advertising, marketing, or communication firms whose clients are ineligible companies; compounding pharmacies that manufacture proprietary compounds; diagnostic labs that sell proprietary products; reagent manufacturers or sellers.

Your disclosures are stored in your AO profile on the AO Website. After login go to your Dashboard and select “My disclosures” under the “Profile” tag.

You can now add new disclosures or deactivate disclosures that are older than 36 months.

If you get a chairing or a teaching assignment in the invitation to an educational event you will be asked to update and confirm your list of disclosures. In addition, you will be asked that you confirm that you will stick to certain best-practice rules when presenting and discussing medical content. This includes your confirmation that you will take care that your content will be commercially unbiased and that your content is evidence-based, if evidence is published.

If the mitigation decision is

1. “Disclosure of conflicts and non-bias attestation”
   You should add a slide in your presentation disclosing your potential Conflicts of Interest to the audience (use the standard disclosure template). You should also be aware that you have confirmed that your content will be commercially non-based and evidence-based. 
   
   
2. “Altering content assignment and non-bias attestation”
   The Chairperson of the educational event has assigned a different topic to you to avoid potential bias. Please disclose your potential conflicts to the audience by adding a slide in your presentation (use the standard disclosure template). You should also be aware that you have confirmed that your content will be commercially non-based and evidence-based. 
   
   
3. “Peer-review / Independent content validation”
   You need to get your slides/content reviewed by the Chairperson or the Co-Chairperson of the event prior to presenting. This needs to be done before the event takes place, at the very latest during the Faculty precourse. 
   
   
4. “Conflict unresolvable”
   You cannot participate in the accredited educational event—for example because you are the owner of an ineligible company

You cannot teach in an accredited educational event without disclosing ALL financial relationships with ineligible companies you have or had in the past 36 months.

If you don’t have any potential conflicts you need to confirm their absence.

As a mitigator it is your responsibility to assess the disclosed potential Conflicts of Interest and decide on an appropriate strategy to mitigate the conflict, so content is not influenced by the disclosed financial relationship.

Faculty are mitigated by the Chairperson or the Co-Chairperson of the event. Chairpersons are mitigated by the respective Education Commission member. Education Commission members are also subject to the disclosure process. All information on disclosures and mitigation are published on the respective event website.

Based on the content you assigned to the respective Faculty or Chairperson you have to decide on the appropriate mitigation strategy that will prevent potential influence of the financial relationship disclosed on the content presented to learners.

All faculty have provided a “non-bias attestation” that they explicitly will avoid commercial bias in their content and that they will present evidence-based content, if evidence is available.

In addition, the mitigator can change the assignment so the conflict becomes unrelated to the content assigned.

The mitigator can also request peer-review of the content prior to the educational activity.

Owners or employees of ineligible companies need to be excluded from participating as planners or faculty.

Additional guidance:

• coi_guide-for-resolver.pdf

If peer-review is part of the mitigation strategy the respective Faculty member should submit the content prior to the event to the Chairperson or Co-Chairperson of the event for peer-review and feedback. At the latest the peer review should take place in the Faculty precourse of the respective event.