Top
Professional Profile
Health Care and Science
Health Care Clients

GLOBALSTRAT 

Health Care clients:

 
(partial list)
 
AAD – American Academy of Dermatology
AADE – American Association of Diabetes Educators
ACHE – American College of Healthcare Executives
ADA – American Dental Association
ADEE – Association for Dental Education in Europe
AORN – The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses
ASA – The American Society of Anesthesiologists 
ASCPT – American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 
ASRT – American Society of Radiologic Technologists
EAO – European Association for Osseointegration
EFIC – European Chapters of the International Association for the Study of Pain
EACCI – European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
EAU – European Association of Urology
EDTNA – European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association
ESCMID – The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
FASEB – Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 
IADR – International Association for Dental Research
IIE – Institute of Industrial Engineers
IFT – Institute of Food Technologists
IPA – International Psychogeriatric Association
ISPE – The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering 
ONS – Oncology Nursing Society
PDA – Parenteral Drug Association
RSNA – Radiological Society of North America
SfN – Society for Neuroscience
SOA – Society of Actuaries
SOE – Societas Opthalmologica Europea
SPIE – International Society for Optical Engineering
STC – The Society for Technical Communication 
STTI – Sigma Theta Tau International

 

 

European Medical Industry Associations can have an impact on your medical meeting attendance! 

 

Do you have European attendees or speakers at any of your medical meetings?

There are several health care industry related trade associations that have developed policies and guidelines regarding the support of and participation in medical meetings for their member companies. 

Even for US based health care associations that only organize meetings in North America, these guidelines and policies can have an impact on your meeting attendance and sponsorship if you;

  • have European Health Care Professionals (HCP's) as attendees or speakers
  • have European Health Care companies as sponsors or exhibitors
Who are these groups? 
  
Eucomed represents the medical technology industry in Europe. Eucomed members include both national and pan-European trade and product associations as well as medical technology manufacturers. In total they represent around 25,000 designers, manufacturers and suppliers of medical technology used in the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and amelioration of disease and disability.
 
EFPIA - The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations represents 33 European national pharmaceutical industry associations as well as 41 leading companies undertaking research, development and the manufacture in Europe of medicinal products for human use.
 
IFPMA - The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations represents research-based biopharmaceutical companies, and regional and national associations across the world.
 
MedTech Europe is an alliance of EDMA (European Diagnostic Manufacturers Association) and Eucomed. MedTech Europe engages with EU regulators, politicians and other decision-makers to help shape policies to promote innovation for growing healthcare needs and expectations. 
 
AdvaMed - Advanced Medical Technology Association is a U.S. trade association that represents nearly 300 members in the U.S. and has members in Europe, India, China, Brazil, and Japan. AdvaMed's member companies range from the largest to the smallest medical technology innovators and companies.
 
How do their Policies and Guidelines impact my meetings?
 
The above referenced medical industry trade associations have developed a series of policies and guidelines for their members regarding which medical related meetings are suitable to receive financial and other support. This has been done in an effort to bring greater transparency to the relationships between Health Care Professionals (HCP's) and the Medical/Pharmceutical Industry to avoid any real or perceived conflicts of interest.

Specifically these companies and their trade associations have responded to potential legistaive actions and have therefore opted for greater self regulation. 

The result is that greater scrutiny has been placed on different aspects of medical association meetings, including the time and place of the event, any ancillary spouse or recreational activities and the quantity and quality of the scientific content.

For example, meetings that are hosted in January in Zermatt, Switzerland or Banff, Canada at a ski resort venue are considered inappropriate as they imply a heavy compnent of recreation or that they are not serious scientific or medical events. Likewise, a meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada or Macao, China in a hotel that also contains a gambling casino is likewise "off limits".  

What happens if my meeting is "black-listed"? 

The guidelines developed by the medical trade associations in alomost all cases are mandatory for their membership. Therefore if EUCOMED or EFPIA determine that your event does not meet their criteria for any reason and is deemed to not qualify for approval, members of these associations will not be allowed to support your event in any way, including; not supporting the attendance of physiciasns, not sending attendees or not exhibiting. 

For US based medical societies and associations that have a significant number of European HCP's attending their meetings, being declined as an acceptable meeting can have significant consequences. 

Ignorance is not bliss

In order to understand if US based medical societies are aware of these European medical trade association policies and guidelines, we conducted a brief survey.

While only 41% of the associations surveyed organized medical meetings outside the U.S., nearly 100% had European HCP's as attendees, either for their U.S. held events or abroad. 

Despite nearly all associations surveyed having a significant stake in this issue, only a small percentage (10-15%) were very familiar with the main European medical trade associations or their medical meetings guidelines. 

 

All of this points to the need for US medical societies and associations to better understand their potential exposure to the risk of losing significant European physcician and other medical professional attendance to their U.S. and international events.   

 _

Want more information? 

GLOBALSTRAT is a leading provider of expert advice and guidance on how to develop an international growth strategy. You can request information or sign-up for our free international association strategy newsletter.