As announced in last month’s issue of the ACCP Report, the ACCP Board of Regents (BOR) charged a three-member task group representing the BOR, the ACCP Research Institute Board of Trustees, and the Pharmacotherapy Board of Directors to develop draft guidelines on organization-industry relationships for consideration by all three boards beginning next month. The members of the task group are ACCP Past President Gary Matzke (Virginia Commonwealth University), Research Institute Trustee Richard De Leon (Amgen), and Pharmacotherapy board member Glen Schumock (University of Illinois).
A resulting draft of the guidelines that reflects the preliminary consensus of all three boards will then be released to PRN leaders, chapter officers, and the ACCP membership at-large for comment. After receipt of PRN, chapter, and individual member input, the three boards will draft and adopt a final guidelines statement for implementation on January 1, 2010. The timetable originally established for this policy development process is detailed below.
| March–May 2009 | Task group deliberations and policy development. |
| June–July 2009 | Task group provides draft guidelines to each board for review, revision as needed, and approval for release for member feedback. |
| August 2009 | Consensus draft guidelines posted to ACCP Web site for PRN, chapter, and at-large member feedback in August–September. |
| October 2009 | The three boards receive member feedback and discuss/determine action on draft guidelines at October 17 joint board meeting. Final guidelines developed and approved before December 31. |
| January 1, 2010 | Guidelines published on ACCP Web site and implemented as official policy. |