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Continuing Medical Education: New Rules under Italian Law (and How to Comply with Them)

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A new regulation has been enacted in Italy, overhauling continuing medical education regulations. The new provisions will not only have an impact on healthcare professionals, who are subject to educational requirements, but also on pharmaceutical companies and medical devices manufacturers supporting educational events and congresses, as well as on third party providers and organizers. The new regulation has been adopted following consensus among regional authorities and the Ministry of Health on February 2, 2017.

The national commission for continuing medical education is entrusted with the task of determining the requirements and quality levels of educational events, as well as the minimum educational goals applicable nation-wide. The commission shall also adopt a manual for the certification of event organizers (so called CME providers). Regional authorities, on the other hand, must ensure a proper and adequate planning for medical education within their territories.

Furthermore, each professional shall develop and comply with an individualized educational plan (so called “dossier”), in order to ensure a coherent and complete education. Educational events attended abroad may also be recognized for purposes of medical education, in accordance with the criteria that will be established by the national commission.

As far as industry operators are concerned, the new regulation reiterates and strengthens the requirements of transparency and independence of educational providers from pharmaceutical/medical device companies. In particular:

  • CME providers must disclose any relationship between speakers/moderators and any private entity active in the healthcare industry;
  • CME providers must not have any direct or indirect interest in any pharmaceutical/medical device businesses or engage in any relationship with such businesses, other than the sponsorship pursuant to CME regulations;
  • CME providers must not organize any promotional events on specific products; a full segregation of activities between educational CME providers and other event organizers is therefore established;
  • The regulation further expands on the definition of conflict of interests and aims at better regulating all relationships and interests between the industry and educational providers;
  • More stringent provisions concerning advertisement and promotion during educational CME events are introduced, including restrictions for employees of the sponsor to attend educational classes and seminars.

While several provisions of the new regulation directly target CME providers, the industry should also be prepared to the new regulatory framework. Here is a list of what private operators should immediately think of:

  • Train your staff on the new regulations (both at your headquarters and on the field);
  • Check if internal company procedures needs to be updated;
  • Check if internal sponsorship documentation (including contracts) needs to be updated;
  • Review ECM providers with whom you usually work to ensure they comply with the new requirements and avoid conflicts of interests.

Health Data Registries and Surveillance Programs, a New Italian Regulation Steps Up the Game

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A new Italian regulation governing health data registries and surveillance programs aims at facilitating the use of such tools for purposes of monitoring health of the population, as well as healthcare spending. A comprehensive legal instrument regulating the various categories of registries and programs was much needed. In fact, the adoption of such a regulation was envisaged by national legislation since 2012 (Section 10 of law decree 179/2012), but no implementing measures has yet been adopted. A draft of regulation has now been released by the Italian government and submitted to the State-Regions conference prior to formal entry into force. The draft has already been reviewed by the Italian Data Protection Authority.

The new regulation aims at standardizing registries and programs adopted over the years, by setting forth: (i) the entities and professionals who may access the information contained in the registries, (ii) the categories of data that are available, and (iii) the measures to be adopted to ensure the security of data in line with data protection legislation.

The goals pursued by the regulation include a better monitoring of diseases at national level and relating treatment, survival rates, mortality index, as well as the increase or decrease over time of a certain disease. The data stored in the registries should also facilitate the carrying out of epidemiological studies in specific territories and/or for specific subsets of the population. Such broad purposes would allow the data to be used in connection with scientific studies, but also for the treatment and prevention of particular diseases.

The data protection provisions enshrined in the regulation are particularly stringent, and provide that all data must be processed by individuals specifically appointed by the data controller and subject to secrecy obligations. Furthermore, the data shall be encoded in a way that does not allow the de-anonymization of the data. Only in case of adverse events and relating field actions, data may be used to contact the interested subject upon prior authorization of the national registry holder. Data breaches will also need to be reported to the Data Protection Authority.

In conclusion, the new regulation provides welcome clarity in a field where regulations have been sporadic and at times incoherent. Moreover, the new regulation seeks to govern at the same time the different legal aspects connected with registries, from healthcare monitoring to data protection. There is little doubt that the hope of the government is to optimize such instruments to better control healthcare spending and conduct a more effective assessment of therapies and products on the market.