A Preview of the In-Person 2022 Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress

_{“The social brain is in its natural habitat when we’re talking with someone face-to-face in real time.”}
_{Daniel Goleman}_{Author, Psychologist, and Journalist}

Welcome back to live and in-person compliance congresses!

This year’s Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress is a “hybrid event,” with the in-person conference scheduled for April 25 – 27 at the Ritz-Carlton in McLean, VA. And I am sure I speak for my fellow sponsors and vendors, as well as attendees from industry, when I say, “woot, woot!”

As much as conference organizers like Informa and PCF made every effort to replicate the live experience with their virtual conferences, networking and sharing ideas and experiences is simply more effective and rewarding in a live setting, with everyone focused on the common goal of reducing risk and building a better compliance program.

So, it is with great anticipation I offer this preview of the “in-person” agenda for PCC 2022 and highlight those sessions that look interesting from a training standpoint. After all, it’s what we do at PharmaCertify.

Day 1: Monday, April 25

9:30am – 10:00am
PhRMA Update

The annual PhRMA presentation appears early on the agenda this year, and the presentation by Jim Stansel should be particularly compelling in light of recent updates to the Code and the Statement on the Application of PhRMA Code Section 2 During Emergency Periods from back in June of 2020.

_{The revised PhRMA Code module from PharmaCertify features a new graphic design and updated content!}

I’m anxious to hear how the organization plans to incorporate the guidance on virtual interactions as the world continues to emerge from the pandemic and we return to a little less of an “emergency period.” By the way, the PharmaCertify Foundations eLearning module, The PhRMA Code, has been updated to cover the changes to the Code and the language in the Statement.

10:30am – 11:00am
Building a Compliance Program and Educating Internal Stakeholders to Gain Alignment, Support and Ownership

Well, that title is a mouthful, but if anyone can handle so much content in a 30-minute session, it’s this impressive lineup of panelists. Industry leader, Terra Buckley, Vice President of Compliance Advisory Services at MedPro, is joined by Jeremy Lutsky from PhaseBio, Ann Beasely of Zai Lab, Christie Camelio from TG Therapeutics, and Emily Gainor of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Hopefully, they will touch on training, because if you’re going to push the envelope to build a better curriculum, you’re going to need buy-in from the C-Suite.

11:00am – 12:15pm
Keynote Enforcement Panel — Stay on the Pulse of Emerging Trends

I know I sound like a broken record (I am assuming that metaphor still works since albums have made such a comeback), but do not miss the enforcement panels. Nowhere else will you hear directly from those responsible for establishing the “emerging areas of focus and recent trends in enforcement oversight,” as it is described in the agenda. No less than six government representatives, including the Assistant Director of the Consumer Protection Branch of the DOJ, will be there to offer their thoughts on their top priorities. I will be listening carefully for how those trends inform our custom and off-the-shelf training courses.

12:15pm – 1:15pm
Networking Lunch

Come visit the PharmaCertify booth! Well, you may have to if the folks at Informa strategically place the food in the Exhibit Hall. But seriously, we do look forward to catching up with our existing clients and contacts and even making new connections. We’ve got new and really cool demos to share, and we even have a new theme for our booth. Just look for the compliance training heroes flying around the room (or at least flying around our booth – we’re still working on permission from the hotel to fly around the room)!

1:15pm – 3:00pm
Post-Lunch Tracks

The afternoon sessions are divided into three tracks titled, Patient and Advocacy Compliance; Auditing, Monitoring and Advanced Analytics; and Digital Health for the Compliance Professional. A number of the sessions from each track look inviting from a training content standpoint. As always, I recommend teaming up to cover multiple sessions if you are attending with coworkers, or even finding a study buddy onsite (I am always willing to share notes if you want to attack this together) and devise a strategy for covering as many sessions as possible. Here are the ones that catch my “training topic relevance eye” at first glance:

1:15pm – 1:45pm
Optimize Advocacy-Compliance Interactions by Minimizing Barriers and Enhancing Successful Partnerships,with Christopher Canada and Amanda Sowinski, both from Amicus Therapeutics.

2:15pm-3:00pm
Spotlight on Rare Disease Compliance Risks, with Danielle Pelot from Choate, Hall & Stewart, Kelly Pitt from MorphoSys, Stephen Bychowski of Sanofi Genzyme, and Michael Hercz from Sentynl Therapeutics.

1:15pm – 1:30pm
Enforcement Update, with Gustav Eyler from the DOJ

2:00pm – 2:30p
Key Oversight Areas for Critical Compliance Insights from Sales to Patient Support, with Karen Lowney of SUN PHARMA, Tiffany Tang from Covis Pharma, Mark Scallon of Baker Tilly, and Brian Kasnowski from SK Life Science.

1:15pm – 1:45pm
Social Media – Risks vs. Benefits, with Brian Van Hoy of G&M Health

3:30pm – 4:15pm

Following a networking break at 3:30 (during which you will, no doubt, make a beeline to the PharmaCertify booth to learn more about how we can help you be a compliance training hero), two concurrent breakout sessions both look enticing in consideration of how the topics potentially affect our clients’ training courses. So, I am going to need a note-sharing partner on these two:

Oversight and Best Practices for Speaker Programs, HCP Engagement and Sales Interactions
There it is! The first appearance of that “sp” word. Actually, speaker programs are sure to be covered in an enforcement panel or two by now, but anytime I see it in the title of a session, I want to be there. It’s an ever-evolving topic and the OIG Special Fraud Alert sill reverberates through the industry and in our training programs. This is yet another panel featuring an impressive lineup, with Catherine St. John from Sanofi, Cynthia Cetani of Indivior, Rore Middleton from Blueprint Medicines and Emily Gainor of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals.

Examination and Application of Key Learnings from Industry’s Most Recent CIAs
Speaking of guidance, Corporate Integrity Agreements hold the fine-print details on the topics and training requirements the government considers a priority. If you want to know where to focus your training, CIAs (and this session with Elizabeth Jobes of Amryt and Nikki Reeves of King & Spalding), are good places to start.

Day 1 closes with two more concurrent sessions, divided by company size. The Emerging and Small Company panel holds particular sway for me since so many of our clients face the challenge of building an effective curriculum with the limited resources and time restrictions inherent to smaller companies. I’ll be curious to hear how Jake DeBoever of Dermavent Sciences, Jeremy Lutzky of PhaseBio, and Hunter Murdock of Axsome Therapeutics take on these challenges.

5:00pm – 6:00pm
Networking and Cocktail Reception
Hopefully, this is in the Exhibit Hall, so come see us again! We’ve got giveaways you’ll really dig.

Day 2: Tuesday, April 26

The morning opens with an industry-only summit, and since I am over here on the vendor side, I am sure to be denied access at the door. And I was so prepared to write glowing reviews of everything that happens in that summit in my conference review on this blog. Are they talking about us in there?

8:45am – 9:15am
Compliance Top 10 — Clear and Concise Overview of the Top Areas of Concern for the Compliance Professional

Following his review of Day 1, John Oroho, from Porzio Life Sciences, offers this enticingly titled session covering the topics that should be of primary concern to the attendees. And if they are areas of concern in general, they areas of focus for compliance training. I’ll be taking copious notes in this one.

Following a CCO Innovation Panel at Panel at 9:15, a networking break at 10:00 (meet me for coffee in the Exhibit Hall everyone!) and a session focused on monitoring at 10:30, the spotlight turns to the Former Prosecutor Spotlight (see what I did there?) featuring Rachel Honig, the former Acting U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey and George Varghese, of WilmerHale. As with the enforcement panels, the former prosecutor sessions offer revealing insight into the topics the industry should prioritize and those that should be a focus for training.

12:15pm – 1:55pm
Lunchtime! You really need to visit the PharmaCertify booth this time because this is when I break out all the new comedy material I’ve been working on just for this conference. Here’s a small sampling: what do you call a monument of a horse with his back legs firmly on the ground? An Anti-Kickback “Statue!” Get it?! Okay, here’s another one…a chief compliance officer, a sales representative, and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney walk into a bar (and you only get to hear the punchline if you visit the booth).

1:15pm – 4:00pm
Breakout Sessions

After lunch and more bad jokes, the agenda is divided into three breakout sessions. I will be focused on the session covering the previously mentioned OIG Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs. I’m anxious to hear what the panel of seven speakers, including Sarah Whipple of Akebia Therapeutics, Hannah Putnam of Fresenius Medical Care, Andrea Kocharyan of Zealand Pharma, Ernie Hernandez of Global Blood Therapeutics, and Averi Price of Radius Health have to say on the enduring guidance, especially regarding how it affects their training.

Since medical affairs and the sales representative/MSL dynamic is always of interest from a training standpoint, the session titled, A Look at Commercial and Medical Affairs to Understand Changes to An Organization’s Evolving Compliance Needs with David Ryan of Epizyme, Jake DeBoever of Dermavant, Amy Wilson of Esperion, and Ed Sleeper of HUTCHMED is my first choice among the 2:00pm – 2:45 breakout options.

Among the 3:15pm breakout sessions for the day, the Third-Party Risk and Oversight presentation, with Ling Zeng of Dicerna, is most interesting for me considering how often we are asked to build and deliver training to global third parties. By the way, the Access LMS from PharmaCertify is a streamlined and cost-effective platform for delivering training to those vendors who don’t have access to your enterprise LMS. Let me know if you’d like to see a demo at the conference or otherwise.

From 4:00pm – 4:45pm, you do not want to miss the breakout session, Reduce Compliance Risk Using a Continuous Learning Approach by my colleague Dan O’Connor, Ed Sleeper of HUTCHMED, Dhara Moro from Sage Therapeutics, and another player to be named later. In leading the PharmaCertify team, Dan has helped forge a new approach to compliance training, based on improving retention through continuous delivery of training assets across a learner’s timeline. I have known Ed Sleeper for many years, and his experience developing engaging compliance training brings a strong and practical perspective to the presentation. And Dhara Moro and Sage have been rolling out some of the more unique and engaging compliance training we’ve seen in the last 20 years. Trust me, this is a strong presentation, featuring experienced training professionals showcasing compelling work.

Day 3: April 27, 2022

Following an important and timely breakfast summit on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, John Oroho’s review of Day 2, and a Policy Reforms, Pricing Pressures and Payer Marketplace Changes Impacting the Life Sciences session with Chris Sloan and Katherine Chaurette, both of Blueprint Medicines at 9:15am, you have your final chance to visit the PharmaCertify booth in the Exhibit Hall!

The conference closes with back-to-back agency addresses with Veronika Peleshchuk Fradlin from CMS and Catherine Gray from the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion at the FDA.

Summary

This year’s Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress promises to be a special one as industry leaders, vendors, and government regulators gather face-to-face for the first time in years to share experiences, expertise, and advice on building and maintaining an effective life sciences compliance program. If you haven’t yet registered for the conference, contact me at smurphy@nxlevelsolutions.com to receive a discount on the registration fee. You don’t want to miss this one!

If you aren’t able to attend the conference, you can schedule a brief session to see examples of how we help reduce risk with better core training, reinforcement, and performance support solutions by emailing info@pharmacertify.com.

See you in Virginia and thanks for reading!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions
Build Better Compliance Training, with PharmaCertify®

Building Better Compliance Training: 5 Ideas for Reinforcement Training

March 7, 2022March 11, 2022 PharmaCertify Team compliance training, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, pharmaceutical compliance, pharmaceutical compliance training

Welcome to this installment in the Building Better Compliance Training series. Our mission at PharmaCertify is to help you reduce risk through better compliance training, and my goal in this series to provide you first-hand tips and ideas for creating a more effective compliance training curriculum.

In my last post, I revealed the formula for making compliance training more effective: Core Training + Reinforcement + Performance Support = Integration (C+R+PS = I). This time, I focus on the ”R” of that formula and offer five proven methods for reinforcing core training to help ensure your learners recall key concepts and policies when adherence is needed most, particularly during interactions with healthcare professionals.

Since studies show that as much as 90 percent of information learned during one event is forgotten within 30 days (remember the Forgetting Curve), here are five ideas to help ensure your learners don’t fall victim to this sad statistic:

_{The PharmaCertify PhRMA Code QuickTake focuses on the latest update to the Code.}

Go “micro” to make it memorable.

Microlearning is all the rage, and for good reason. Targeted microlearning modules (we call them Compliance QuickTakes) are an ideal way to reinforce critical concepts introduced in core training. Launching a QuickTake on gifts and meals soon after core training on promotional practices, for example, helps improve retention of your company’s policies on a topic fraught with compliance risk.

In addition, today’s eLearning development tools (e.g., Articulate Storyline) make it easier and more cost effective than ever to create reinforcement modules from larger, foundational eLearning. So don’t fall into the trap of thinking one-and-done eLearning is going to meet the needs of a team facing the risk of the proverbial Forgetting Curve at every turn, especially when the opportunity to flatten that curve is just a few select reinforcement modules away.

Lights, camera, animation!

Animated video, featuring illustrated characters, is a compelling method for developing modern videos and a welcome relief for audiences steeped in the disappointment of reinforcement programs populated with dry content and unrecognizable stock photos. Illustrated characters offer a flexibility not easily matched with stock photography, and let you easily create a set of actors equal in diversity to your company’s personnel.

One of our clients regularly launches “Compliance Moments” videos to reinforce key topics from their core training. The programs feature serious content presented in a light (sometimes humorous) tone to help make the messages stick. Having a scriptwriter who combines a keen sense of instructional design with an awareness of how to create realistic scenarios is a must to make the training work. (P.S. we have these.)

_{Videos with illustrated characters are an effective way to enhance retention.}

Solve a compliance mystery.

Who doesn’t like a good mystery? And who wouldn’t prefer solving a compliance mystery over the typical slide-based presentation?

_{The Compliance Mystery opens with a series of clues in the form of emails, texts, and receipts from HCP meals.}

The days of a compliance officer speaking to a PowerPoint deck are fading fast and your learners expect a higher quality of workshop training. As importantly, a strategically scheduled compliance mystery workshop gives you the opportunity to take a “deeper dive” into the content and immerse participants in the learning, whether the environment is live or virtual.

It’s the ideal reinforcement opportunity as learners act as compliance detectives, work together to identify red flags and determine the best course of action for each scenario. To ramp up the learning even more, try sharing team scores from a leaderboard during the workshop.

It’s engaging, it’s modern, and it’s a great way to make the training relevant as you enhance retention of compliance policies and best practices.

Play a game…virtually, or in a live workshop.

_{Scenario-based games make the training more relevant.}

Games work for reinforcement. In fact, according to a recent study, 80 percent of US workers believe game-based learning is more effective. And if they believe it, they welcome it, especially over the standard compliance training formats.

While games such as JEOPARDY! (which we also offer), come with the built-in advantage of being familiar to the learners, the format and gameplay doesn’t have to be recognizable to be effective. The key is simplicity, fun, and flexibility to customize the categories with your content.

_{Customize the content to focus on the topics and questions that need reinforcement.}

Put simply, games work for reinforcement because they require participants to retrieve information from the long-term memory, process it in the working memory, then re-encode it back into the long-term memory (okay, maybe that wasn’t put simply).

“Escape” to more effective reinforcement training.

Escape rooms are a familiar concept for your audience. And familiarity breeds learning.

So, why not create a virtual compliance escape room to help reinforce the rules and policies around topics like virtual sales calls, speaker programs, and medical conferences? The virtual rooms we have created for clients feature a series of clickable clues followed by a series of knowledge checks based on those clues.

An important note: the knowledge checks should be challenging enough that learners will need to revisit the clues to think through the correct answers. Make it subtle and challenging. Returning to the clues to recall the correct information helps the knowledge retention process and serves to strengthen reinforcement of the messages.

Throughout 2022, we will continue to post articles on this blog, as well as infographics and tips sheets on the Insights page of our website to help you build a better compliance training curriculum. In the meantime, if you’d like to see demos of the products referenced in this article and discuss how we can help you reduce risk through training, contact us at info@pharmacertify.com.

Thanks for reading!
Sean Murphy

A New Year, a New and Improved Compliance Training Curriculum

January 13, 2022January 13, 2022 PharmaCertify Team commercial compliance, compliance training, compliance training games, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, pharmaceutical compliance, pharmaceutical compliance training

Welcome to 2022 and a brave, new (and hopefully more effective) world in life sciences compliance training! Over the last two years, the industry has had to navigate the convergence of new and important regulatory documents (DOJ’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, OIG’s Serious Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs), as well as updates to leading industry guidance (PhRMA Code, AdvaMed Code). Mix in a series of corporate integrity agreements and settlements focused on key topics, along with a global pandemic, and you have a perfect recipe for a shift in how risk is evaluated and remediated.

So, what’s the appropriate method for recalibrating your compliance training curriculum in response to these events and forces? The solution is as easy as A, B, C, and D:

Assess Your Company’s Compliance Training Curriculum

Regular risk assessment is a long-time best practice for building and maintaining effective compliance programs. It’s nothing new, and as usual, the major conferences from Informa and PCF in 2021 included multiple sessions where risk assessment was a major topic of discussion. But this time, the regulatory guidance and industry code updates added a sense of urgency to the importance of this best practice.

But what good is a risk assessment if you don’t then assess your training curriculum against that risk? When we work with clients, we evaluate where they are in the product development process, and what training they’re already delivering on which topics, in what form, and at what frequency. It is often a revealing process, identifying gaps and redundancies in topics, and when and how the information is covered.

Good news! It doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Using tools like our Compliance Curriculum Analysis Tool (CCAT) can help. And it can also be as straightforward as evaluating compliance risk for the product you are about to launch and establishing a baseline of online foundational curriculum around topics like HIPAA and Interactions with HCPs. No matter where you are in the product development cycle, know your risk levels as they relate to topics and audiences. Then look for opportunities to effectively address those risks in your curriculum with a continuous stream of foundational and reinforcement training.

Blend the Formats

The 2022 PhRMA Code Changes QuickTake eLearning Module

The days of using one large PowerPoint deck to train on all things compliance during onboarding sessions are long gone. Good riddance. Effective, well-designed training covering critical topics like bribery, kickbacks, HCP interactions, and speaker programs is readily available.

But the curriculum all stakeholders now expect doesn’t stop at eLearning modules covering foundational topics. You should also plan reinforcement training to help ensure that proper behaviors are integrated into your learners’ daily practices.

If your risk assessments show speaker programs to be a big risk area, don’t count on that one eLearning module or live training session to quell that risk. Why not launch a mini module specifically covering the selection and training of speakers? We call them QuickTakes. In fact, today’s development tools allow for smaller, more focused sections to efficiently and cost effectively be pulled from the larger modules.

Virtual workshops and games can be utilized to train on topics best discussed in live environments, where follow-up discussions and dialogue strengthen the core lessons. For example, if your assessments identify off-label promotion as high risk due to the nature of your company’s products, design a “compliance mystery” workshop, with scenarios replicating real-life environments sales representative can expect to experience in the field.

Or, ramp up the competition and raise the level of learning with an online or virtual game like our Compliance JEOPARDY!, which is currently the only officially-licensed Jeopardy game on the market.

Finally, does your curriculum include performance support and just-in-time tools to help guide the learners before and after training events? Print and digital support materials can be designed in conjunction with the training and delivered to learners where they need it most – at their fingertips in the field.

A blended curriculum is not only the best approach for “making the learning stick,” it’s what the government, the industry, and perhaps most importantly, your audiences, now expect.

Communicate Across the Company

I admit that every time I heard the phrase “tone from the top” over the last ten years, I found myself wondering why the same topic was covered ad nauseum and seemingly at every conference. Then, a variation on that mantra started to seep into the presentations: “tone from the middle.” The reality is that key messages and lessons in compliance are delivered from the middle, more specifically, managers. And bringing those managers into the communication process helps ensure those in the field are reminded of the importance of compliance every day. It’s why presenters at conferences constantly stress the need to “partner with the business” and why compliance needs to be integrated throughout the company.

Speaking of communication, what does your plan look like? If you don’t have one, you should. Digital banners, animated video, and posters help reinforce the themes related to training and carry the messages across the company. For example, a QuickTake module covering kickbacks can easily be exported into a video for hosting on the company’s intranet. Or consider the approach we’ve taken with a number of clients to portray the compliance department in a more approachable light and produce lighthearted videos showcasing the risks involved in engaging with your company’s HCP partners.

Deliver It Continuously

One of my previous blog articles asked what a 170-year-old German psychologist had to do with compliance training and learning. The answer then, and even more so now considering the forces at work in the industry, is “everything.” Hermann Ebbinghaus is credited with theorizing fundamentals of human learning, including the learning curve, the spacing effect, and the forgetting curve. The forgetting curve essentially states that what humans remember after a learning event drops steeply after the completion of that event.

Continuous delivery helps reset the forgetting curve.

What Ebbinghaus theorized is interwoven into the government documents and settlements we’ve witnessed in recent years: “one and done” just doesn’t cut it. Unless you are taking a continuous approach to the delivery of your company’s compliance training components, you’re probably not taking every step possible to maximize the learning.

Are you deploying training nuggets across the learners’ timelines? Does your training plan include ongoing assessments and quizzes to help flatten that forgetting curve and increase knowledge retention? Are you asking for feedback from the learners on the quality of the training materials and adjusting accordingly? Have you explored available platforms for repurposing and sharing your training content?

In the DOJ’s guidance, the agency noted that some “companies have invested in shorter, more targeted training sessions to enable employees to identify and raise issues to appropriate compliance, internal audit, or other risk management functions.” The possibilities for doing that extend well beyond the creation of shorter eLearning modules. The availability of video, animation, podcasts, quizzes, and games, as well the delivery platforms necessary to continuously deliver those components, all create the opportunity to envelop learners in a framework of minimized risk.

Summary

The advent of new regulatory guidance documents and revised industry codes, as well as the implementation of recent industry settlements, affect the way risk is evaluated and judged in the life sciences industry.

We may be facing an onslaught of requirements and regulatory expectations during a time when the norms of business have been disrupted and disorganized, but using the instructional techniques and concepts outlined above, you have the opportunity to not only navigate your way through those changing expectations, but to elevate your compliance training curriculum to one that helps you rest easier on those waves of change.

Thank you for reading! As always, my colleagues and I at PharmaCertify welcome the chance to discuss the compliance training challenges you may be facing.

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions
smurphy@nxlevelsolutions.com

Training Takeaways from the 2021 Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Ethics & Compliance Congress, and What It All Means for Your 2022 Curriculum!

November 18, 2021November 18, 2021 PharmaCertify Team compliance, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Compliance Congress, pharmaceutical compliance, Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress, pharmaceutical compliance training

_{The virtual PharmaCertify booth at the Compliance Congress featured compliance training modules and games for workshops and online use!}

The Pharmaceutical Compliance Forum (PCF) understandably went virtual again for the Virtual 22^ndAnnual Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Ethics and Compliance Congress. Though the lack of booth traffic that inevitably accompanies virtual conferences left the PharmaCertify team longing for the return to in-person events, this year’s presentations featured a bevy of new and compelling content from industry professionals and government regulators alike.

Here are ten takeaways to keep top of mind as you continue to plan, revise, and refine your training curriculum for the first quarter of 2022 and beyond.

The focus on speaker programs isn’t going away.

If the 2020 release of the OIG’s Special Fraud Alert related to speaker programs was a figurative shot across the bow of the life sciences industry, the updated PhRMA Code, scheduled to take effect January 2022, offers steadying guidance on the details of how to conduct more compliant programs. In the OIG Update session and across multiple mini summits involving industry leaders, the mandate was clear: speaker programs are rife with the potential for fraudulent activity and assessing program practices and the level at which you train on those practices is crucial.

Hold the third parties you use for managing speaker programs to the same standards as your internal organization.

_{The revised Compliance Foundations eLearning module, Managing Speaker Program Risk, is now available!}

Third parties have long been a staple of emphasis at industry compliance conferences, but the increased emphasis on speaker programs highlighted in recent CIAs, the OIG’s Special Fraud Alert, and the revised PhRMA Code speaks to the need for increased scrutiny. And presenters at the conference picked up on that theme. As one presenter noted, “You need to be clear up front, when you are negotiating with third parties you expect full transparency.” And training needs to be part of that consideration from the start of the conversations. Have the vendors you’re considering instituted their own training on speaker programs? Do they need to be added to your list of learners? If yes, do they have access to your enterprise LMS or will they need to access the courses through a separate portal?

Look to the new PhRMA Code for guidance.

During the mini summit focused on the OIG Alert, PhRMA Code, and AdvaMed Code, Julie Wagner, from PhRMA, detailed the process the organization went through to plan and revamp its Code. It was clearly a thoughtful and well-planned series of steps. Other presenters throughout the conference (on the industry side as well as government representatives) emphasized the need for companies to look to the Code as a framework for how to conduct HCP interactions. The updates to the Code reflect the key takeaways from recent corporate integrity agreements as well as the challenges of conducting business in a post-pandemic world. Whether your company is a signatory or not, training on the new PhRMA Code is more critical than ever. That’s why we have rebuilt our Compliance Foundations eLearning module, The PhRMA Code, with a more intuitive interface and design, and an instructionally redesigned approach to the content. Contact us at info@pharmacertify.com to see a content outline.

Assess risk across your organization, and don’t forget your training curriculum.

I may be a bit biased since the moderator is my colleague, Dan O’Connor, but the mini summit titled, Optimize Your Compliance Training: A Practical Approach to the DOJ’s Guidance, was one of the most important of the entire conference. Dan discussed the need to assess risk according to audience, topic, format, and cadence with his panelists, Katrina Church of Bioventus, Matthew Hill of Novo Nordisk, and Karen Snyder of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. If you’re not mapping your activities frequency against the risk associated with each of those activities, the learning will suffer, and risk will rise. All risk is not created equal, and as one presenter in the DOJ/SEC panel said, “It’s difficult to implement an effective program if you don’t know where your risks are.”

You really do want employees to speak up. So, tell them.

Self-remediation was a theme during the DOJ Keynote as panelists emphasized the importance of companies bringing issues found during their own due diligence to the attention of the agency. Doing so appears to go a long way in how the agency treats cases, especially when the companies demonstrate they are taking the necessary measures to identify the root causes of the issue and remediate them. Does your training encourage employees to speak up when they witness potential violations? Is that message pushed out in periodic scenarios as part of your on-going microlearning efforts? The compliance department can’t be everywhere at all times, so reports of violations are more likely to come from the field. Make sure your learners are well-versed in your reporting and non-retaliation policies.

Be ready for surprises when the industry shifts back to field-based interactions.

During the Chief Compliance Officer Fireside Chat, one CCO touched on the need to expect surprises as the industry returns to more field-based interactions by saying, “When we get back out into the field, I’m sure there will be things we weren’t expecting.” Is your curriculum built to respond to those surprises? Have you integrated the type of learning nuggets that can be quickly modified and re-deployed as the bumps in the compliance road appear? Including such easy-to-modify components such as mini-modules, alerts, and read and signs into your curriculum creates the agility to respond rapidly before those surprises cause even more uproar.

Patient programs and third-party vendors: a risky combination.

Since the OIG requires manufacturers to take steps to exclude federally insured patients from patient assistance programs, presenters in the mini summit dedicated to patient assistance programs spent a considerable amount of time discussing the need for thorough assessments of the vendors who manage the programs. As one presenter commented, “part of that is looking at the capabilities of the vendor, what processes they have, do they have rules that align with your company’s policies and expectations, and do they have qualified and trained personnel to run these programs.” And as was highlighted, multiple vendors may be involved in different aspects of the programs. The internal and external training matrix can be complex for patient programs but identifying the appropriate level of training across all vendor personnel is the first step to ensuring continuing compliance.

Measure your company’s culture and look for opportunities to strengthen it.

One of the medical device summits featured a lively discussion of company culture as a driver for employee engagement. The conversation focused on the idea that culture is the driving force behind an organization’s approach to its business and everyone in that organization is responsible for maintaining that culture. As one presenter noted, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” It was a refreshing twist on the rules-based vs. values-based debate and at PharmaCertify, we absolutely agree that life sciences companies need to seek out opportunities to strengthen their ethical cultures – including through training. After all its in our mission statement: helping life sciences companies strengthen their compliance cultures and reduce risk through training.

When it comes to compliance, patients are the new HCPs.

Comments from panelists in the mini summit focused on patient advocacy organizations, their growing reach, and the attention they therefore require from a compliance standpoint. Even the smaller, niche organizations have a big voice with governmental agencies, so they shouldn’t be ignored. Is your compliance program, including your training curriculum, addressing patient advocacy to the appropriate level? The risk is real and as one presenter stressed, “they are the new HCPs.”

Social influencers need to be considered.

The AUSA Roundtable session concluded with a notable discussion on the influx of social influencers and the expectation for more enforcement related to these celebrities who sometimes hold sway over the purchasing habits of the American public. A recent situation involving celebrity, Kourtney Kardashian, was cited as an example of one influencer making public comments, which led to a warning letter being issued to the company by the FDA. Kardashian made a public appearance on a popular television show, as a recognized and paid spokesperson for the product, and made false or misleading efficacy and risk claims. As trivial as the topic of social influencers may seem, they need to be properly trained and prepared to appropriately speak about products.

Summary

I have only scratched the surface of the plethora of content presented during the during the Virtual 22^ndAnnual Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Ethics and Compliance Congress. As with past conferences, the depth and expansiveness of topics covered was impressive and well-suited for newcomers to the life sciences compliance industry as well as experienced veterans. There was something for everyone.

PCF, the organizers, and all the presenters deserve a hearty congratulations and kudos for such a wide-ranging and informative conference. There remains no better resource for up-to-date best practices and advice than conferences like this one. Hopefully, the pandemic will be in our proverbial rear-view mirror this time next year and we’ll meet in person for the 23^rdAnnual Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Ethics and Compliance Congress and never have to deal with that “virtual” word in the title again.

Thanks for reading!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify By NXLevel Solutions

A Preview of the 22nd Annual Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Ethics and Compliance Congress

September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 PharmaCertify Team commercial compliance, Compliance Congress, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, PCF, pharmaceutical compliance, Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress, pharmaceutical compliance training

Visit the PharmaCertify booth at the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Compliance Congress to see demos of our newest modules, reinforcement programs, and games!

Here we are, over a year after Covid completely upended our lives, personally and professionally, and we are still attending compliance conferences virtually. The Pharmaceutical Compliance Forum (PCF) opted for a virtual forum for the Pharm a ceutical and Medical Device Ethics and Compliance Congress again this year and a quick review of the agenda highlights the notion that no matter the format, this conference consistently presents the information any compliance professional needs to help reduce risk. Here are my pre-conference thoughts on the sessions of interest, particularly those that affect compliance training curricula.

Day 1: Tuesday, November 2, 2021

In an interesting twist on the standard agenda format, PCF opens the congress this year with a series of concurrent mini summits covering a range of topics. My standard advice applies; divide and conquer. If you’re attending with colleagues, plan to attend different presentations, then share notes. Even if you attend on your own, find a friend in one of the early networking sessions and don’t be shy about asking if they are interested in taking the same note sharing tact. It’s a veritable plethora of content to wade through…and that is definitely a good thing.

Mini Summit 1: Enforcement Action Updates

I tend to include most of the enforcement panels in these preview blog posts simply because they’re rare opportunities to hear the experiences and advice of those on the forefront of actions and settlements, including topics that trainers should be concerned about. This conference is no exception. Panelists include Assistant US Attorneys from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of Massachusetts, as well as the Assistant Director of Civil Division/Fraud Section of the Department of Justice.

Mini Summit 3: Evolutions of Investigations

The title for this one caught my eye and moved to the top of my priority list. Investigations have formed the foundation for the industry’s focus throughout the growth of the compliance industry and they certainly influence the training that has evolved from the early days of PowerPoint presentations to the multi-layered foundational and reinforcement training that is now considered the vanguard of effective eLearning.

Transition Breaks and Lunch

I include the breaks in this “must attend” list of sessions because they offer the best opportunity to interact directly with peers, vendors, and consultants. These are the people who not only provide crucial funding for the conference but also offer the products and services you need to help reduce risk and build a stronger culture of ethics and compliance. We’re here and we’re anxious to meet you. So, I invite you to check in with these critical vendors in the exhibit hall.

Mini Summit 5: DOJ/SEC FCPA Panel

Please see my thoughts on Mini Summit 1. The same apply to this session focused on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Mini Summit 7: Annual Medical Device Update

Hooray for Medical Device! It’s in the conference name and it is rightfully in the agenda. While many of the topics listed throughout the agenda apply to medical device companies, concerns and challenges unique to the industry abound. The panel includes chief compliance officers from Medtronic, ZOLL Medical, and Olympus, as well as a representative from AdvaMed and I’m looking forward to hearing how they address the issues associated with the rising number of recent medical device settlements.

Open Forum with PhRMA and AdvaMed

The Senior Assistant General Counsel for PhRMA and Vice President, Global Compliance and Governance for AdvaMed will be available in an open forum, hopefully ready and willing to take your questions. Enough said.

The Pivotal Role of CCO’s in Fostering a Strong Culture of Inclusion, Trust, and Psychological Safety

After a break, the conference switches from concurrent summits to this important and timely general session. I’m especially intrigued by the phrase “psychological safety” in the title, and I look forward to hearing whether inclusion and diversity are included in the discussion.

“Evolving our Operating Model” Discussion Breakouts

For the final session of the day, attendees choose one of three titles: 1. Managing Remote Teams, 2. Scope and Structure of the Compliance Function, and 3. Ethics and Compliance – The Road Ahead. To borrow a cliché, Covid has clearly changed the world and our industry for the long term. While the same core principles apply no matter how business is conducted and even how training is launched, compliance challenges shift and grow with the advent of virtual interactions. That’s why numbers 1 and 3 are of particular interest to me.

Day 2: Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Day 2 kicks off with more mini summits and interactive workshops followed by the opening plenary session at 1:00 pm.

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP III: Hot Topics in Medical Device

Medical device is back with its own workshop and that is definitely a good thing! I look forward to hearing what topics Sujata Dayal from Medline Industries and Dana McMahon of Stryker include in their presentation and comparing the list to what we cover in our off-the-shelf and custom training solutions we provide for our medical device clients.

MINI SUMMIT 15: Optimize Your Compliance Training: A Practical Approach to the DOJ’s Guidance

I confess, since my colleague, Dan O’Connor, is the moderator on this one, I may be a bit biased. But I’ve seen the initial outline for the presentation and trust me, you don’t want to miss it. Dan, and his panel of compliance professionals will delve into the landmark guidance from the DOJ and present a practical framework for building and managing a continuous curriculum of training that will help your organization align with its principles.

MINI SUMMIT 16: Patient Assistance Programs

Speaking of hot topics! Regulators are paying attention to your patient programs, and you should be doing the same. So, you don’t want to miss this opportunity to hear Noor Haq from Amgen and Kevin Ryan from ACADIA share their experiences and tips for managing and minimizing the compliance concerns associated with PAPs. By the way, here at PharmaCertify, we’ve developed a new customizable eLearning module covering patient programs. Visit our website to see a description.

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP 4: How to Establish Risk Tolerance in an Emerging Organization

If your company faces the challenges unique to those that fall into the emerging category, this holds the potential to be one of the most valuable sessions on the docket. Terra Buckley, who is now the Vice President of Compliance Advisory Services, is a seasoned industry professional, and frankly, one of the most dynamic presenters I have seen on all topics related to life sciences. Terra will be joined by David Ryan, Chief Compliance Officer at Epizyme.

Opening Plenary Session

Several presentations are listed as part of the plenary session that runs from 1:00 pm to the close of the day’s agenda at 5:30 pm.

Keynote: OIG Update

Following the fireside chat with Giovanni Caforio, MD, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, Mary Riordan, Senior Counsel, Office of Counsel to the Inspector General at OIG will deliver her annual update on the agency’s enforcement actions and workplan. It’s always a highly anticipated presentation and for good reason. Her slides and notes form a solid foundation for where companies should be focusing their efforts and their resources in the coming year.

Response to OIG Special Fraud Alert and PhRMA and AdvaMed Code Update

The conference organizers have combined these three weighty topics into one presentation, and I am anxious to hear the panel of industry professionals and representatives from PhRMA and AdvaMed delve into the important details of each one. The Fraud Alert and the updates to the two codes led to significant changes in the content for our off-the-shelf and custom training courses at PharmaCertify, and we’re developing reinforcement components like a brief explanatory video describing the PhRMA Code to roll out in conjunction with the updated foundational module.

Annual Chief Compliance Officer Fireside Chat

Day 2 ends with an impressive lineup of chief compliance officers from pharma and med device, representing companies of different sizes and therapeutic focus. Ann Beasley, from Zai Lab, Shefari Kothari from Novartis, Angela Main of Zimmer Biomet, Kristin Rand from Moderna, and Latarsha Stewart from Servier Pharmaceuticals are sure to add a compelling exclamation point to a day chock full of critical compliance experiences and advice.

Day 3: Thursday, November 4, 2021

Following the form of the first two days, Day 3 begins with a series of MINI SUMMIT 21: Interactions with Health Care Professionals

Interactions with healthcare professionals are the foundation upon which solid compliance practices, principles, and training must be established. Whether those interactions are in person or virtual, they are fraught with risk, yet when they are conducted in a compliant manner, they continue to form the core of what makes the life sciences industry what it strives to be; a noble group whose primary focus is helping its customers improve the lives of patients. That’s why I’m looking forward to hearing the best practices for those interactions espoused by a panel that includes representatives from both the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP V: Evolution of Ethics & Compliance

We have been hearing about the industry shifting away from “a culture of compliance” to an “ethics-based” approach to compliance for a few years now. While the notion is a laudable one, the practicality of that migration is more challenging in such a risk-based environment. I am eager to hear the presenters’ tips for executing that evolution, including how they carry it through to their compliance training.

MINI SUMMIT 25: Trends in FDA Advertising/Promotion Enforcement: Know the Risk Areas

Any session with “Know the Risk Areas” as part of its title gets my attention and when the focus is on advertising and promotion it’s no exception.

Closing Plenary Session

The afternoon on Day 3 includes a plenary session with a series of interviews and sessions. After a keynote interview with Tim Wright, the Chief Executive Officer from MiMedx and a fireside chat with Rady Johnson from Pfizer, Catherine Gray from the FDA presents the annual FDA Keynote. Like the OIG Update from Mary Riordan, the review of the FDA’s workplan is worthwhile and important. And the AUSA Roundtable offers another valuable view of current trends and hot topics from those on the regulatory side of the table.

Day 4: Friday, November 5, 2021

Industry Only Best Practices Think Tank

I’d like to wax poetic about this, the final session of the conference, but I remain relegated to the figurative “kids’ table” of vendors and exhibitors who can only wonder what juicy nuggets of compelling and important information those insiders are discussing behind their locked virtual walls. In the meantime, I continue to stare at my email inbox, awaiting my golden ticket. Here’s a suggestion for the PCF team: perhaps an outline of the ideas and suggestions discussed during the session could be shared with all attendees after the conference concludes.

Summary and Complimentary Conference Registration

That’s quite a bit of content for any conference, so kudos to PCF and the organizers for creating such a hefty agenda and gathering so many impressive presenters. And I’ve only scratched the surface of the list of mini summits and plenary sessions. If you’re attending the conference, I invite you to stop by the PharmaCertify booth to see demos of our newest compliance training programs, workshops, and games. You don’t want to miss our new Compliance JEOPARDY!® game, the only officially licensed one on the market!

If you haven’t yet registered, we can help! As a conference sponsor, we are offering a limited number of complimentary registrations. Just contact my colleague, Dan O’Connor, at doconnor@nxlevelsolutions.com to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from your peers and fellow compliance professionals. You don’t want to miss it.

Thanks for reading and I will see you online for the conference!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions

Five Ideas for Your Compliance Session at the Next National Sales Meeting or POA

September 24, 2021 PharmaCertify Team commercial compliance, compliance training games, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, pharmaceutical compliance, pharmaceutical compliance training, pharmaceutical compliance training games, POA training

Your next national sales meeting or POA is just around the corner! If you haven’t thought of a fun and engaging way to make the content stick during your time in front of the reps, especially with the move to virtual events, all is not lost. There is still time to craft a compelling session to help ensure key compliance concepts are communicated effectively and learning is optimized.

Here are five ideas that might just have your participants saying, “that was the best compliance session I’ve ever attended!” Trust me, it does happen. I’ve seen and heard it myself.

Play Compliance JEOPARDY!

Jeopardy-style games have long been a staple of compliance training and the familiar format continues to be a great way to get your learners’ competitive juices flowing. It’s a popular format that your audience will recognize instantly.

PharmaCertify offers the only officially licensed JEOPARDY! game on the market and wow is it cool! You can populate the game with categories and clues written by our subject matter experts or draw questions from your own policies. Either way, our instructional designers will work with you to create a series of clues that challenge the participants’ knowledge at just the right level to enhance the learning.

Compliance JEOPARDY! is flexible. We offer a baseline off-the-shelf version to get you started, and depending on the amount of time you have at the meeting and your learning objectives, you can include up to 51 clues in one game (including Double JEOPARDY! and Final JEOPARDY!)

Make It a Compliance Mystery

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? A mystery-themed workshop is an ideal way to present new compliance concepts and reinforce existing knowledge in a live, or virtual, collaborative and information-sharing environment.

When created thoughtfully and using sound instructional principles, a mystery workshop can draw the learners in as they play “compliance detectives” to solve scenarios through their knowledge of compliance best practices and guidance. You can even make it a blended event by rolling out “clues” in the form of email messages, voicemail transcripts, and text messages, before the date of the workshop.

At PharmaCertify, we include a compliance mystery activity in our Compliance Reality Challenge. Participants begin the Compliance Mystery by reviewing the clues they were presented prior to the workshop. Once they complete that review, they are presented with a screen from which they choose red flags. They then answer a series of questions to test their understanding of the scenario and their decision-making skills.

Following the completion of the activity, facilitators briefly have the opportunity to review the scenarios and provide clarification on policies as necessary. After the workshop summary and a review of the key lessons learned, a leaderboard can be revealed to highlight the final scores.

Build a Virtual Compliance Escape Room

Escape rooms are all the rage, and a virtual escape room can be a great device for transferring that popularity into a memorable learning activity.

The escape room can build trust and collaboration as participants work in teams to solve challenges and use codes to escape. An escape room can be a blended event, with core training and other pre-work delivered prior to the activity, which will allow you to focus on specific concepts during your time with the participants.

Escape room activities begin with a scene for the group of learners to explore. Each participant clicks on each “hotspot” to review key information. Once all hotspots have been explored, a “Next” button appears, and participants are presented with a series of questions regarding the scene. As members of a team answer questions, the score for that team is averaged automatically to generate a final team score. The workshops are generally designed for a 45-minute duration, and include introductory remarks, debriefs between activities, and wrap-up remarks.

Build Your Own Compliance Scenarios

Scenario-based learning is a tried-and-true method for helping learners improve their decision-making skills. Scenarios give your reps the chance to apply knowledge from previous training in a safe environment.

Our Compliance Scenarios training game is an easy way to create role-play situations for your next meeting. With Compliance Scenarios, you can transport the audience into simulated interactions with healthcare professionals during the training session.

We’ll work with you to develop discussion points for a series of branching scenarios, and we’ll create the photo or illustrated images to go along with the content. When learners think critically to solve a simple or complex scenario, retention is increased, and learning is enhanced!

Pursue Trivia (see what I did there?)

Who doesn’t like trivia? In fact, did you know that new versions of TRIVIAL PURSUIT are still being released. There’s a new “Master Edition” available with over 3,000 questions? Looks like my holiday shopping list just got a little longer.

Whether they are played online, around the kitchen table, in a bar, or during your company’s training meeting, trivia games are a powerful way to pull participants into a fun learning experience.

Compliance Trivia by PharmaCertify is customizable and can turn your session into a competitive experience through an assortment of question types, including multiple choice, select all that apply, image match, and polling.

Even if you’ve already mapped out an activity for that next meeting, but you need one more reinforcement activity to fill the time available, Compliance Trivia will leave your audience brimming with confidence and compliance knowledge.

Summary

The time available to capture the audience’s attention at a sales meeting may seem fleeting but the lessons your participants learn will be incorporated in their daily work activities well beyond the session. Themed workshops and games are just a few of the options available to “make the learning stick,” but an engaging and meaningful session is a necessary and important step in the continuous process of reducing risk and creating a stronger culture of compliance and ethics in your company.

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome any comments or feedback.

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions

Reduce Compliance Risk: Play a Game

August 12, 2021August 23, 2021 PharmaCertify Team compliance training, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, pharmaceutical compliance, pharmaceutical compliance training, training games

In this week’s post, Dave Correale, Senior Instructional Designer at NXLevel Solutions, discusses the benefits of using games to reinforce key compliance concepts and make training more engaging.

Imagine you’ve been given a 30-minute slot at an upcoming sales meeting. You’d really like to use the time to reinforce your company’s privacy principles, but you don’t want to just present a boring slide presentation. You know a game would be more fun, but would it be effective? How do you build a game around privacy principles, anyway? Besides, you’re not sure you even have the time or resources to build an effective game.

Let’s explore the first question: Would it be effective? While some of the more ambitious claims surrounding game-based learning are not yet substantiated by research, there is strong evidence that games can increase learner motivation and engagement, critical factors in the success of any learning program.

But how do you build an effective learning game around a topic like privacy? One mistake some people make when implementing a training game is they focus too much on the game and not enough on the objectives. Games are not a panacea. A game will likely not be effective for learning if it is not designed to meet specific instructional objectives. And just because a game is effective for one set of learners, in one specific circumstance, it not necessarily be effective for all learners in all circumstances. Just because you are using a game for learning, you cannot ignore valid instructional design principles and practices.

Fortunately, there are many types of games to meet many different types of learning objectives in a variety of circumstances. The level of participation itself can be diverse: games can involve teams or individuals playfully competing against each other in real time, or they can involve single players whose only competition is the game itself.

Let’s return to your 30-minute slot at a fictional sales meeting. Your goal is to reinforce learning on a topic your learners should already be familiar with. You could have employee teams play against each other in a “Jeopardy-style” contest. We’ve all seen the actual Jeopardy!® board – there’s room there to deliver a lot of content. But instead of bullet points, you’re leveraging familiar game show mechanics to raise curiosity among the learners and harness their competitive instincts. You can also build deeper connections between your employees and engage virtual employees in something more than just polling questions.

Single-player games also afford a number of possibilities. Perhaps your company is concerned with the number of recent settlements involving speaker programs. Players could work their way through an unfolding speaker program scenario where they need to engage with the speaker before the program and then respond to situations that arise during the speaker’s presentation. As they respond to each situation, the game moves forward, learners see the consequences of their decisions, and important lessons are learned or reinforced.

Finally, what about the time and resources required to design and develop an effective game? This is why PharmaCertify’s library of learning games is a good fit for ethics and compliance teams. Our collection of prebuilt games, which includes the only official Jeopardy!® game available, are easily customized to help you increase learner engagement and meet your learning objectives while requiring a fraction of the time and cost required to build a game from scratch. Contact Dan O’Connor at doconnor@nxlevelsolutions.com to see a demo and start planning your next compliance training success story.

And look for additional posts in the future that continue to discuss how game-based learning solutions can help you reduce compliance risk and strengthen your culture of ethics.

Thanks for reading!

David Correale, Senior Instructional Designer, NXLevel Solutions

Key Training Takeaways from the 2021 Virtual Compliance Congress for Specialty Products

July 7, 2021July 14, 2021 PharmaCertify Team commercial compliance, compliance, medical device compliance, medical device compliance training, Pharma, pharmaceutical compliance, Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress, pharmaceutical compliance training

Although Informa’s virtual 2021 Compliance Congress for Specialty Products was targeted to those companies that focus on rare and orphan diseases, many of the key messages shared by the panel of industry professionals and regulators were applicable to compliance professionals from companies of all shapes and sizes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the three-day conference, with my thoughts on what those messages mean for your compliance training program:

To say the pandemic has changed the way life sciences conducts business may be cliché, but based on the presentations in this conference as well as the Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress in April, at least some of those changes are here to stay. Change begats an increased volume of risk, and in the opening session, Keeping Up with Industry Trends — Top Compliance Concerns Facing CCOs, presenters emphasized the need for risk assessments now more than ever.

1. The current pace of change highlights the importance of risk assessment.

You need to take the same approach with your training curriculum. What are the key risk areas based on your company’s products? How often are the topics relevant to your product covered in live and online training? Are key areas addressed with reinforcement and just-in-time training? We call this process the Compliance Curriculum Analysis Process (CCAP). In fact, I wrote about how the process can improve outcomes for the publication, Life Science Compliance Update, back in 2017. Thanks to the pandemic, and increased governmental scrutiny, it’s even more relevant today.

2. Choose the right company when making a career move.

While most presentations in compliance conferences are focused on the best practices and concepts necessary to optimize a program, hearing one of the presenters stress the need to be aware of culture before joining a company was refreshing and enlightening. As the presenter pointed out, you cannot be shy about exploring whether the company makes compliance meaningful and if compliance is valued – before you accept a job offer.

Don’t forget to explore their approach to training as well. Are they regularly rolling out the kind of creative training and microlearning that helps flatten the “forgetting curve” my colleague Dan O’Connor, Erica Powers of Sage Therapeutics, and Karen Snyder of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals addressed in the Optimize Your Compliance Training: A Practical Approach to the DOJ’s Guidance session? (By the way, you really should see the slides from that presentation and the examples of fun an innovative training your peers are using to help reduce risk. Drop me an email at smurphy@nxlevelsolutions.com if you’re interested.)

3. Equip leaders with consistent and proper messaging.

In a twist on the familiar “tone-from-top” mantra, another presenter in the opening CCO session stressed the need for the compliance department to take the lead in providing leadership with the proper messaging needed to reinforce that tone. As he said, “consistency is key as you cascade communication across your program.” It applies to training as well. Not only does the C-Suite need to be trained in the same concepts and policies as employees, they, and the management team, need to be repeatedly reminded of the need for a seamless message. As we’ve been told in just about every conference over the last five years, you need to earn a “seat at the table” with leadership. Once you’re in that proverbial seat, helping them espouse the messaging necessary to keep your program consistent is the key to keeping it meaningful.

4. Don’t decline meetings during the pandemic.

During the Compliance During a Pandemic session, presenters spoke at length about the importance of open lines of communication and the need to make every attempt to meet with business colleagues whenever possible. The businesses and field employees need to know you are accessible when they have questions. As another presenter chimed in, “you need to constantly make sure they know who to go to.” That concept extends to your training curriculum. Does your training include surveys and other feedback mechanisms? Do you encourage outreach in your eLearning? Creating and nurturing an open dialogue can only make your training more effective, during the pandemic and beyond.

5. If you’re going to have live speaker programs, you need to be wary of red flags.

That’s according to one presenter during the prosecutors’ presentation on high-priority risk areas. As he put it, the very fact that HHS even issued the Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs should be interpreted as a warning. While multiple presenters in other sessions suggested their companies will move to hybrid models with virtual and live programs, the opinions of the prosecutors were clear: expect the OIG’s focus to be on the live versions.

Managing Speaker Program Risk is one of the newly updated Compliance Foundations eLearning modules available from PharmaCertify. It covers the critical content your reps need to understand to remain in compliance, and like all our modules, it’s easily customized with your policies and content! Contact me to see a demo.

6. Not every patient advocacy organization is the size of the American Diabetes Association.

Day 2 kicked off with the Optimize and Mitigate Risk within Patient Interactions and Support Programs. Presenters noted the trickiness in dealing with advocacy groups in particular – not all the groups will be large and experienced enough to understand the potential pitfalls of compliance. You may need to educate them on the guidelines and principles, and that can be a challenge, especially on the delivery front since outside learners often don’t have access to your internal learning management system.

PharmaCertify can help with the Access LMS platform. Access LMS is a cloud-based, affordable alternative for reaching outside vendors and organizations with your compliance training. It’s simple, it’s easy-to-use, and it won’t break your budget. Contact my colleague, Dan O’Connor, at doconnor@nxlevelsolutions.com to see a demo.

7. Dig deep into the weeds with MSL/commercial training.

The relationship between the medical and commercial divisions is nuanced and fraught with risk. During the Compliant Frameworks for Medical Affairs and Commercial Interactions session, a presenter whose company recently launched its first product reinforced the need for detail. While medical/commercial interactions have always been a pain point for her, she clarifies gray areas on topics such as “the rules for visiting HCPs together,” with what she calls “ways of working documents that clarify what each group can do and why.

At PharmaCertify, we take the same approach with our MSLs and Sales Reps: Understanding the Divide Compliance Foundations module. The content is designed to cover each role in a manner that helps reps and MSLs understand their own rules as well as those of the other group. I’d be happy to send you a content outline.

8. Follow the money. The prosecutors are.

It’s no secret that the government is scouring Open Payments data. And they are following the trail of money flowing to HCPs. During the enforcement panel, one prosecutor bluntly stated, “if you pay a provider hundreds of thousands of dollars, we are going to be looking at it.”

Reps need to consistently be reminded of HCP spend limits and incorporating microlearning components like on-going assessments and quizzes into your curriculum is key to ensuring those numbers are top of mind. We’d welcome the opportunity to show you how it works.

Summary

Kudos to Informa and all presenters for putting forth a valuable and important learning experience despite the challenges that always accompany a virtual event. The pandemic has changed the way in which we share ideas, best practices, and personal experiences as much as it has changed the industry in general. As the world inches back to a more “normal” approach to information sharing, I anxiously await the day when we can again meet in person in a conference exhibit hall and exchange ideas for how you can reduce risk and build a stronger ethical culture through training.

Thanks for reading!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions

Key Messages from the 2021 Virtual Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress (And How the Messages Affect Your Compliance Curriculum)

May 12, 2021May 12, 2021 PharmaCertify Team Compliance Congress, compliance training, medical device compliance training, PCC2021, pharmaceutical compliance, pharmaceutical compliance training

In what was hopefully the last of the “virtual” compliance conferences (fingers and toes crossed), the 2021 Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress (PCC) offered time-tested and established standards (insert “tone from the top” and “ethics-based approach” here), thankfully blended with new best practices, trends, and suggestions from an impressive list of industry executives and government representatives. Some of the key messages from the three-day conference are listed below, along with my thoughts on how those concepts affect your training curriculum in 2021 and beyond.

1. OIG’s Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs still ripples across the industry.

The comments surrounding the OIG’s Fraud Alert released last November certainly were not revelatory, but the fact that industry insiders and regulators are still stressing its importance is meaningful. The Alert was referenced right out of the gate in the presentation by Jim Stansel of PhRMA, and one presenter in the Enforcement Trends presentation summarized its impact by saying, “OIG has thrown down the gauntlet on speaker programs with the Fraud Alert.” As the industry moves away from virtual engagements toward more in-person programs, expect intensified scrutiny.

Speaker programs remain a hot topic for enforcement, and as the industry emerges from the pandemic, your learners need refresher training on the foundational rules of compliant speaker programs and the key concepts associated with those programs. We can help, with our recently updated PharmaCertify Foundations eLearning module, Managing Speaker Program Risk.

2. Data is your friend. (Or should that be “Data are your friend? That one always confuses me.)

The need to scrutinize data has been a recurring topic of conversation, and this year’s PCC was no exception. Having access to data in the right form and unitizing that data to identify trends and outliers is key to an effective compliance program. “Be proactive to dig deep into the data,” one presenter at the Chief Compliance Officer Showcase on Day 1 suggested, “and identify field personnel who are consistently right at the meal limits.”

In life sciences compliance, the devil is in the data, and an informed evaluation of data is critical when updating and optimizing your compliance training curriculum. What is the data telling you? If you’re seeing concerning trends, you’ve got a training challenge. And if you’re not seeing any trends, you’re probably not looking hard enough, or you’re not gathering the right data. As my colleague, Dan O’Connor, pointed out in the Creative Compliance Training Solutions presentation, “when you send out post-training surveys, don’t ask the learners if they liked the training, focus on what they learned and ask them what they can apply in their jobs.” The data is out there, you just have to find it.

3. An ounce of compliance prevention is worth a pound of effectiveness.

In the Former Prosecutor Panel, one presenter emphasized the need to proactively address issues, whether a company is establishing its compliance program or reinforcing important policies as the business evolves. “Getting legal advice on the front of the program is important,” he says, “and when you move back to live interactions, refresh employees on the perils of speaker programs.”

No matter the topic, an adaptive approach to learning is the most effective way to ensure your audience is mastering the concepts and policies. Retention is enhanced when training is rolled out on a continuous basis, in the form of microlearning nuggets, where learners are asked to repeatedly demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. You will sleep better knowing you’ve taken steps to reduce risk.

4. Join in the innovation.

During the Chief Compliance Officer Luminary Panel, one presenter pointed out that the pandemic has forced companies to be innovative in how they navigate business activities, and she reminded the audience that the compliance department “should play a big role in that innovation.” The day of compliance and business operating in siloed fashion are long over. “A seat at the table” is no longer a hopeful cliché randomly mentioned at compliance conferences. To facilitate a true partnership under which compliance polices and best practices are integrated into the daily activities of the workforce, everyone involved needs to understand that risk tolerance in the industry has changed, and the only way to reduce that risk is through a unified spirit of collaboration and innovation.

That notion of cooperation and collaboration extends to training. When compliance training and concepts are integrated regularly into each employee’s full curriculum and daily work, learning is enhanced and stronger ethical cultures are forged. And as was referenced on Day 1 of the conference, statistics from the Ethisphere Institute, an organization focused on defining and measuring corporate ethical standards, show that companies with strong ethical cultures perform better.

5. Evaluate your vendors’ compliance programs as part of your due diligence.

The idea of conducting due diligence before hiring third-party vendors has long been espoused at compliance conferences. But I was intrigued to hear a presenter in the Fireside Chat with CCOs suggest an even deeper dive into a vendor’s compliance program to evaluate whether its practices and principles align with those of your company.

On the training front, that includes a thorough evaluation of the vendor’s compliance training program. Do they cover the high-risk topics pertinent to your company and its products? Do they conduct compliance training in general? How often do they train their employees? How accurate and focused is that training in terms of content? These are the type of questions that need to be incorporated into your third-party vendor risk questionnaire and considered before the contracts are signed.

6. The Sunshine Act rises again.

Too often, life sciences professionals regard Sunshine Act/Open Payments training as a “one and done” event. But as presenters in the Analysis of OIG Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs and Assessment of Future Activities session pointed out, Medtronic’s recent settlement with the OIG included a payment to resolve allegations that it failed to accurately report payments to CMS. This topic is too big and too risky to not being training more aggressively.

In addition to refreshing the content in our Compliance Foundations module, The Sunshine Act and Open Payments, we recently added The Sunshine Act Payment Categories QuickTake module to our library of customizable off-the-shelf products. The five-minute module is the perfect complement and reinforcement course to the foundational training, which covers the topic at a higher level.

7. The pandemic is not an excuse.

The notion that the pandemic does not give companies an excuse to lose sight of compliance was repeated daily throughout the conference. Industry leaders and government representatives reminded the audience that the shift to virtual interactions and programs will not be viewed as justification for breaking the law or acting in bad faith. Even though the way in which business is conducted has changed, the core principles and rules governing compliance have not.

The same holds true for your training curriculum. Don’t use the pandemic as an excuse to “put off” searching for ways to enhance training and increase engagement. In fact, you should be doing just the opposite as the industry shifts back to more live interactions. We can help with our Compliance Curriculum Analysis Process (CCAP), which is a comprehensive process to identify training gaps and reinforcement opportunities in your training components.

8. Expect continuing focus on foundations and copay assistance.

Enforcement trends around patient support programs and foundations are growing. It’s a topic on the minds of regulators and routinely on compliance conference agendas. As one of the presenters in the Keynote Enforcement Panel on Emerging Trends Enforcement put it, “we are seeing a ton of copay assistance cases in our district.”

Emphasis needs to be placed on patient program training. And to borrow a phrase, we’ve got a module for that. The Compliance Foundations module, Patient Programs and Their Risks, is a great starting point. Module topics include protecting patient privacy, discussing programs with HCPs, working with vendors, and a topic that is top of mind in life sciences – donations to foundations.

Conclusion

The organizers of the virtual PCC have made the main stage and on-demand sessions available until May 29 for attendees. If you were there, I highly recommend you visit the conference site for content you may have missed or to revisit the sessions most relevant to you and your company. It’s one of the perks of attending a virtual event.

While Informa made every effort to replicate the look, agenda, and networking opportunities associated with a live event, it cannot match the on-site conference experience. Fortunately, I am told Informa is planning a live conference for the fall, which will be welcomed news if the dates don’t conflict with those of the Pharmaceutical Compliance Forum’s conference. Bring on the real thing!

Thanks for reading; I look forward to seeing you “live and in person” at a conference before too long!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions

Jen Anderson of Vertex, Jackie Parris of Incyte, and Dan O’Connor of PharmaCertify present during the *Creative Compliance Training Solutions* session at the virtual 2021 Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress.

A Preview of the 2021 Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress…As Seen Through My Compliance Training Glasses

April 9, 2021April 9, 2021 PharmaCertify Team medical device compliance training, PCC2021, Pharma, pharmaceutical compliance, Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress, pharmaceutical compliance training, pharmaceutical spending

pcc2021 In what could be Informa’s final “virtual” compliance congress (fingers crossed), the spring kickoff Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress offers a plethora (sweet…I got to use “plethora!”) of industry leaders and government representatives covering oft discussed, yet still relevant topics, mixed with new and timely entries to the agenda (e.g., transparency tips for 2021, advancing virtual interactions, applying behavioral science to drive an ethical culture).

From a compliance training standpoint, the general sessions and breakout workshops at PCC offer attendees the rare opportunity to evaluate their own programs and curricula against the industry standards espoused by the well-known panelists and presenters. The bottom line: if you want to keep up with your peers, you really should try to be there. We can help make that happen with a sponsor discount on the regular registration rate. Just email me for the details, get yourself registered, and get ready to soak up three days of the information you need to keep your training meaningful.

I’ve perused the conference agenda with an eye toward what each session could mean for you in general and for your 2021 training plan and here are a few of the sessions that jump off the screen:

Day 1: Tuesday, April 27

Refill your coffee cup before 10:15 am, and make sure the rest of your morning/early afternoon calendar is clear because after the chairperson’s welcome, Informa comes out of the gate swinging with three general sessions sure to have you glued to your computer screen.

The fun begins at 10:50 with James Stansel, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at PhRMA presenting the Current Snapshot of Affairs Coming Off an Unprecedented and Politically Charged Year. Could there be a more aptly titled presentation to kick off a life sciences compliance conference after what we went though over the last 12 months?

The content you really don’t want to miss starts flowing with the Fireside Chat with CCOs – Top 10 Items on Their Radar and Why They Should Be on Yours presentation from 11:00 – 12:00. Who doesn’t love a good top ten list? (except of course David Letterman since we are just “borrowing” the concept from him.) Other than maybe “best one hit wonder music acts,” I can’t think of a topic sure to have the audience around the virtual office water cooler buzzing for weeks to follow. And, let’s face it, once someone mentions Come on Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners, the one hit wonder list just runs out of staying power, while that OIG Speaker Programs Fraud Alert is going to be on the industry’s mind for months to follow. Toora loora toora loo rye ay!

We break for lunch at 12:00 – but as importantly, you have plenty of time to visit the virtual Exhibit Hall and learn about the various products and services available from the vendors. We’ll be at the PharmaCertify booth with demos of our newest eLearning modules and other training tools to help you manage your company’s risk and build a stronger culture of ethics and compliance. We’re creating some cool (and effective) stuff that you really need to see. I implore you…come see us lonely vendors!

File the third general session, the Keynote Enforcement Panel, in the “oft discussed but still quite relevant” category. The panelists here represent the metaphorical heart of the PCC batting order, with an acting U.S. Attorney and a First Assistant U.S. Attorney being joined by a representative of the DOJ and another from a private law firm to hold court (okay, am I pushing the euphemisms too far?) over the audience with the latest list of topics expected to be at the forefront of enforcement this year.

At 3:00 pm on Day 1, the agenda is divided into four simultaneous working groups. All of them look compelling for different reasons, but if transparency training is on your 2021 radar, I suggest Trends from 2020 Transparency Reporting and Tips for 2021 with Terra Buckley and Chelsea Ott, both of Medpro Advisory Services. Terra is one of the best industry presenters I have heard on the life sciences compliance circuit and her recent move to head up the advisory services for Medpro is quite a coup for the company and quite a bonus for its clients. Terra knows the ins and outs of transparency (and all things compliance, for that matter) and she is sure to leave you with actionable suggestions for optimizing your program.

At the same time, I can make an equally compelling case for the Advancing Digital and Virtual Interactions session, or the Optimizing Compliant Patient Interactions session based on recent headlines and settlements as well as the compliance star-studded panel scheduled for each one. Since the sessions are simultaneous, teaming up with colleagues and taking copious notes to share later is your best option to ensure appropriate coverage. That’s my plan, and if you’re looking for a “study buddy,” I’m happy to join forces. Don’t be shy, call me!

Day 2: Wednesday, April 28

After the annual year in review video presentation, the OIG fraud alert makes its first scheduled appearance at 10:30 on Day 2 with the Analysis of OIG Special Fraud Alert on Speaker Programs and Assessment of Future Activities. Considering the buzz it has stirred up in the industry since its release, don’t expect this to be the first, or final, reference to the document during the conference. The FDA Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) and Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) will follow at 11:05 and 11:35 respectively, in two sessions that typically prove to be helpful peaks into each agency’s workplan and focal points for the upcoming year.

Then at 12:00, it’s back to the Exhibit Hall. We’ll be waiting in case you didn’t get the chance to stop by on Day 1. After all, look at this top-notch lineup of sponsors and exhibitors ready to hear about your challenges and help you meet you goals!

During the afternoon, the 1:40 session, titled, Former Prosecutor Panel – Answers and Insights from Industry’s Trusted Advisors should offer insight, tips, and suggestions from a panel with unique insight into both sides of the regulatory table. And the CCO & GC Luminary Panel – Leading Strategies to Advance the Business and Accelerate Innovation, scheduled for 3:00, features a list of well-known and respected professionals, including Beth Holly from Regeneron.

At 4:00, attendees again break into one of four simultaneous “roundtable exchanges” to end the day. Depending on your priorities and business profile, you may not want to miss Table Talk A, Speaker Programs or Table Talk B, Insights for Emerging and Newly Commercial Companies, but I would be remiss to not recommend Table Talk D, Creative Compliance Training Solutions. My colleague, Dan O’Connor, will be joined by Jackie Parris of Incyte and Jen Anderson of Vertex to delve into how each company is using innovative training solutions to reduce risk across their companies. You don’t want to miss the demos in this one, so remember to “divide and conquer” across all the sessions if necessary.

Day 3: Thursday, April 29

The final day of the conference features a global tilt, beginning with the IFPMA Spotlight – Deep Dive into Evolving International Best Practices at 9:30, followed by Global Payments and FMV at 10:05, and the EU e-Privacy Directive and the Impact on Monitoring Digital Communications and Social Channels (that one is a mouthful, isn’t it?) at 10:40. Whether your company has a global footprint or not, the life sciences world is a small one and we’ve come a long way since the days of the FCPA being the primary driver of worldwide regulation, best practices, and ultimately, your training curriculum.

The day ends with a one-hour Diversity and Inclusion Summit at 12:00. It’s a timely and important (if not long overdue) way to close the conference and I will be listening for ideas on how the panelists integrate diversity concepts and messaging into their compliance training.

Summary

Hopefully, the next time I write a compliance congress preview (Informa or PCF), it will be in anticipation of an upcoming live conference. As much as I appreciate the efforts of conference organizers to replicate the live experience virtually, frankly it can’t match the value of gathering in-person. For vendors and industry attendees alike, nothing replaces the insight available through face-to-face interactions.

That being said, Informa has created a compelling agenda for this year’s virtual version of the Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress with sessions applicable to both the new and seasoned life sciences compliance professional. Opportunities, such as this, to hear from esteemed leaders in the field and regulators are rare, and anyone interested in hearing up-to-date data, tips, and suggestions for modernizing and maintaining an effective compliance program should make every effort to attend. Again, we can help with that.

Thanks for reading. I will see you online at the Congress!

Sean Murphy
PharmaCertify by NXLevel Solutions

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Deliver It Continuously

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