The Food and Drug Administration recently announced in the Federal Register that it has released its draft "Blueprint for Prescriber Continuing Education Program."

The blueprint is designed to guide continuing medical education providers as they develop materials to use to train prescribers of long-acting and extended-release opioids under these products' required risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, or REMS.

Here's more on the draft blueprint, and information on how to provide feedback on it to the FDA.

The CME Coalition, which launched in June to provide a voice on Capitol Hill for those who believe continuing medical education can and does improve patient care, has released a voluntary Code of Conduct.

Find out why the Coalition decided there was a need for a new Code, what they hope it will accomplish, and what else the group has been up to.

American Express Meetings & Events has released a product designed to make it easier for pharmaceutical meeting managers to make payments to healthcare providers using foreign currency. The system, which is built on the American Express FX International Payments platform, enables pharmaceutical companies to send, receive, manage, track, and report payments in more than 110 currencies in a secure online system.

Here's more on how the system works.

No matter how hot the topic, how dynamic the faculty, or how strong the coffee, it’s going to be a challenge to get participants actively engaged at a 6 a.m. satellite symposium. The Philadelphia-based Institute for Continuing Healthcare Education decided to try to perk things up at its early-morning satellite symposium at the annual American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting last year by customizing the format of the popular pub trivia game Quizzo to get sleepy docs up and engaged with the material—and each other.

And guess what? Despite some skepticism all the way around, it was such a hit that they're bringing it back for this year's conference. Here's how it worked.

Meeting professionals who work in the pharmaceutical, bio, or medical device field need to know how today's challenges and changes affect the healthcare providers who attend their meetings. But how often do they get candid feedback from HCPs that they can use to improve their meetings?

They'll have just that opportunity to get that feedback at the 4th Annual West Coast Life Sciences Meeting Management Forum. The forum, which will be held December 14-15 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in California, and is co-sponsored by Medical Meetings and The Center for Business Intelligence, will kick off with a panel of practicing physicians who can’t wait to share their perspectives on the life sciences industry. They’re ready to tell you how federal, state, industry, and corporate compliance issues are affecting their ability to meet their educational needs. These docs are raring to talk about how travel restrictions and other new regulation-driven issues factor into their decision-making process as they determine which certified or promotional meeting to attend. And they’re ready to tell all about how the trends in online education and social media are affecting how they obtain the clinical information they need to treat their patients effectively.

Register now at PharmaMeetingPlanners.com/West to learn all you’ll need to know to be prepared to meet the life sciences meeting challenges of 2012 and beyond at the 4th Annual West Coast Life Sciences Meeting Management Forum.

What’s your biggest headache when planning overseas meetings and events? If you’re like the hundreds of meeting pros who have already registered for our free November 17 webinar at 2 p.m. Eastern entitled Avoid the Culture Gap: Top Strategies for International Contract Negotiations, it’s very likely to be about how you can effectively communicate exactly what you want and need during your sourcing, negotiating, and contracting phases.

At our fee, one-hour webinar, you’ll get practical tips and strategies from three of the industry’s top international meeting experts, included medical meetings pro Rhonda Williams, senior meetings manager with the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, who has planned global medical meetings in India, Singapore, Portugal, U.K., Greece, and Austria, and is now planning for an upcoming meeting in China.

Earn continuing education credits in this free, one-hour webinar.