The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) was reaccredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) in 2022, and we are accredited through 2026. We continuously strive to ensure that the education activities planned and conducted by our faculty meet generally accepted ethical standards as codified by the ACCME, the Food and Drug Administration, and the American Medical Association.
To this end, the AGS has implemented a process based on the Updated ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education where everyone in a position to control the content of an education activity has disclosed to us all financial relationships with any ineligible company within the prior 24 months.
Ineligible Companies
An ineligible company is any entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Financial Relationships
Examples of financial relationships include employee, researcher, consultant, advisor, speaker, independent contractor (including contracted research), royalties or patent beneficiary, executive role, and ownership interest. Individual stocks and stock options should be disclosed; diversified mutual funds do not need to be disclosed.
Research funding from ineligible companies should be disclosed by the principal or named investigator even if that individual’s institution receives the research grant and manages the funds.
AGS Implementation Strategies for Identifying and Mitigating Conflicts of Interest
DISCLOSURE
We require that planners, authors and faculty of education activities complete a disclosure statement detailing all financial relationships with any ineligible companies that they have had over the past 24 months. In keeping with ACCME Guidelines, if a planner, author or faculty member refuses to disclose their financial relationships, they will be disqualified from being a part of the planning and implementation of the CME activity.
MITIGATION OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Should the AGS determine that a conflict of interest exists as a result of a financial relationship a planner, author or faculty member may have, the AGS will mitigate the conflict prior to the activity. ACCME has defined circumstances that create a conflict of interest as those that occur when an individual has an opportunity to affect CME content about products or services of an ineligible company with which he/she has a financial relationship.
Some examples of how the AGS may mitigate conflicts of interest by altering control over contentinclude but are not limited to the following:
- Ask planners, authors or faculty members to divest themselves of the relationship that is producing the conflict of interest.
- Peer review content before presentation or publication.
- Require that recommendations for clinical care be based on the best available published evidence or best practice guidelines.
- If a proposed faculty member has a conflict of interest related to the content, choosing another faculty member who does not have a relationship to the ineligible company.
- Changing the role of a person with a conflict of interest within the activity so that it is no longer about products or services of the ineligible company. For example, an individual with a conflict of interest regarding products for treatment of a condition could address the pathophysiology or diagnosis of the condition, rather than therapeutics.
NOTIFICATION TO FACULTY
Planners, authors and faculty members will be notified in writing of the AGS policies on Disclosure and Resolution of Conflicts of Interest and the basis of this policy in the ACCME guidelines.