Thank you
To the over 28,000 unique visitors to Healthcare-Venues.com since its launch.
We are proud of the impact we have had to date and look forward to supporting the medical meetings community in their journey to create better meetings !!
The guidance, focused on medical society virtual / hybrid meetings can be seen here in more detail with a Q&A document here.
3Sixty thoughts:
More very welcome guidance upgraded since the 2020 issue now including Hybrid meetings which are expected, by industry and societies, to be the dominant form of “congress” moving forward.
What caught our eye?
1. The new (ish) IFPMA ethos was reinforced in the document. Why do we think this is important? Well, the Ethos outlines a code based not solely on rules but one framed in; integrity, values and principles. The result? more subjective decision making o identify is something the right thing to do! If your organisation has not already defined how this impacts the part you play in the creation and planning of meetings and ensured your teams are ready then you’re behind the game …
2. Guidance is applied to international meetings, defined as medical associations/societies involving HCPs from multiple countries. National meetings are not “in-scope” we tend to use the Congress Vetting System (CVS) criteria when determining what is a national and international medical society meeting.
3. The code (international, regional or national) still applies even if they were written with in-person meetings in mind. Note sections on an events educational value, medicine promotion, certification (see ABPI clause 8 to see how the UK handles this), destination and venue selection in the case of in-person formats as a few examples of how to still apply the code. Reminder, every meeting supported by industry must include a written rationale outlining the reason industry is supporting a meeting in the rush to plan the tactic this can be overlooked.
4. The route to apply the right code and label to a meeting has been strengthened, reminding industry not to rely on medical societies / congresses to determine the applicable code to a meeting but to take that into their own hands. This is another reason why there should be a stronger link during planning between medical societies, industry and PCO’s pooling knowledge and communicating as a collective how the code applies to meetings.
events One of the significant features of healthcare and life science regulation is the need of those business partners, not directly guided by the code, to recognise that the code in a collateral way may impact them.
One such example is the vetting or assessment of independent Medical Society congress activities using metrics derived from the code.
Back story
For a number of years congresses have been vetted or assessed if you prefer, via independent solutions and platforms by both European trade / industry / regulatory bodies.
Medical devices – MedTech Europe, Platform: CVS
Healthcare and life sciences (pharma) – EFPIA, Platform: e4ethics
Criteria differed between both organisations with some common threads.
What’s different?
Since 01 January 2022
The MedTech Europe (cvs) and EFPIA (e4ethics) platforms have now merged to be focus applications through the MedTech Europe platform.
MedTech Europe Application Website
So, what does this mean in more tangible terms?
The type of Events qualifying for review will remain different
On the other hand, within the CVS, international Events need to be reviewed when they are taking place within the MedTech Europe geographical scope. This includes:
How do I learn more about the vetting / assessment solutions?
Information on MedTech Europe, CVS approach: Link
Information on EFPA, e4ethics approach: Link
Note: the comments within this bog post are those of 3Sity Event Consulting – we recommend viewing the links provided before using this information to execute any business decisions.
Developing Thought Leadership
At 3Sixty and Healthcare Venues we love thought leadership that can have a positive impact on the healthcare meetings eco-system.
If you have a blog, white paper, or other content that can help create debate or provide a few answers to the challenges we all face then let us know. We can’t promise to support everything .. but we’ll try our best!
We are also enthusiastic to support the development of content from our position as independent experts. We can provide observations or lengthier contributions if they fall within our interests and experiences.
The type of topics that complement our knowledge base are:
You can contact us via LinkedIn or the contacts us page on this website.
Mark’s career has seen him master a number of operational roles to become Director of global event management company World Events (now Ashfield Meetings), then Head of Global Events for F. Hoffmann La Roche where he established global compliance guidelines and the integration of 35 markets into a centralised solution.
More recently he worked with Grass Roots to create an aligned international multi-market offer for meetings and events, before becoming Director of 3Sixty Event Consulting and founding our independent venue compliance index healthcare-venues.com. When he’s not deeply involved in developing our own strategic and collaborative offering he is also an expert advisor to Plenum, a peer-to-peer networking group, through which he passionately contributes to the global dialogue around Healthcare meetings and events.
His consultancy experience has given him unrivalled industry insight into strategic meetings management, future trends and HCP engagement.
She has over 30 years of experience in meeting and trade show management, hotel sales, and procurement. She also has 17 years of direct involvement in Strategic Meetings Management (SMM), including developing a pioneering SMM programme for the world’s largest biotech company, and a venue compliance process for the early PhRMA guidelines. In 2007, Betsy set up her own SMM support consultancy, and has also written many articles, developed educational content, and presented to audiences in America, Europe and Asia.
She brings enormous expertise, enthusiasm and global insight to our operations.
Simon is a specialist in Healthcare Sector meetings, with a finely tuned understanding of successful events across the product lifecycle. He has supported numerous top-level Healthcare and Life Science companies in developing clinical programmes, coordinating launch activities, and delivering engagement-driven meetings for internal and external audiences.
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