Continuing Professional Development and PIPA Accreditation

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PIPA ACCREDITATION

By Anne Turnbull

During 2010, PIPA became a professional accreditation association with an associated Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points system of membership. There are several different types of membership, each with increasing requirements for eligibility and, where appropriate, a post nominal. This enables individuals to move through the levels of membership as they develop their career in Medical Information and/or Pharmacovigilance. PIPA believes that this champions Medical Information and Pharmacovigilance as professions in the pharmaceutical industry. PIPA wants membership to be seen by employers as a necessity in developing and maintaining standards in the fields of MI and PV. In 2021, PIPA launched its CPD portal, which members can access via their ‘My Account’ button when logged in to the PIPA website: access your complete CPD record at any time. As well as this, achieving 40 PIPA CPD points over a 2-year period will allow you to qualify for higher PIPA membership – either Full or Fellow – depending on your experience. Higher PIPA membership entitles you to use postnominals of either MPIPA or FPIPA after your name, to demonstrate your industry experience.

The idea behind the portal is that you can use it as a one-stop-shop to log all of your training and professional development achievements in one place. You can add historical CPD records going back as long as you would like. This means that even if you change companies, you will be able to

What are the membership levels?

We have 5 levels of membership as outlined in the image below (which can also be found on the website: https:// pipaonline.org/professional-development/continuingprofessional-development/).

With the exception of student members, everyone is automatically awarded Associate Membership when joining PIPA. Members can move up to full member (MPIPA) if they can demonstrate at least two years of experience in MI or PV along with at least 40 CPD points within the previous two-year period. The next membership level is Fellow (FPIPA), which is for professionals with at least 10 years of experience in PV or MI and a minimum of 40 CPD points in the previous two years. Honorary membership is by nomination only and is awarded to individuals in recognition of their exceptional service to PIPA.

The membership levels are awarded as a reflection of an individual’s professional development and experience – but it doesn’t affect what members can access via the website.

PIPA’s intention is that the CPD requirements complement what an individual is currently doing. CPD points are accrued over a rolling two-year period and activities considered to contribute to CPD for PIPA membership include:

• postgraduate studies • training courses • conferences and workshops • authoring articles, book chapters and monographs • presenting at conferences, forums and seminars • facilitating workshops and lecturing on postgraduate and pharmaceutical training courses • serving on a PIPA Committee or Working Party, a trade association working party or on an MHRAindustry liaison group or project.

Activity

Participation in career development and refresher training courses, workshops, forums and conferences including post graduate courses / modules.

Presenting at external training courses, workshops, forums and conferences.

Lecturing at post-graduate courses (by non-academic staff and when not part of member’s core role).

Facilitation or chairing at workshops, forums or training courses.

Points awarded Limit

1 per hour Max 8 points per day

2 per hour of presenting Max 12 points per day

1 per hour Max 8 points per day

Authorship of PIPELINE article

Authorship of books, chapters or monographs. 2 per article

20 per book, 10 per chapter, 5 per monograph

Mentoring or coaching others. 1 per hour

Active involvement in a Regulatory Authority inspection. 1 per hour

Actively serving on the committee of a recognised industry body e.g. PIPA.

Actively serving within a MI / PV related body including PIPA working party, trade association working party. 15 per full year

8 per full year Max 5 points per 2 years

Max 10 points per 2 years

To achieve and maintain Member or Fellow status of PIPA, you need to demonstrate your commitment to CPD by recording at least 40 PIPA CPD points per rolling 2-year period according to the scheme above. A minimum of 27 points should be directly related to Medical Information and/or Pharmacovigilance (including process, product, disease, regulations, ABPI Code knowledge). You should try to accrue CPD points through a diverse style of activities across the scheme. PIPA CPD points are not accrued for routine work duties but for activities that challenge and develop the member’s skills and expertise.

Each CPD cycle is a two-year period. Once a member has uploaded the relevant evidence, they can click the ‘request review’ button and their record will be reviewed by one of the PIPA team. If the requirements have been met, they will then be awarded the appropriate level of membership. For each CPD cycle of two years, members must continue to attain at least 40 CPD points to either maintain their current membership status, or to move up to the next membership level. If at the end of the next CPD cycle a member hasn’t maintained their CPD record, they will drop down to the basic Associate level of membership.

Adding CPD evidence is easy…. simply click on the ‘Add Activity’ button and fill in the form as shown on the screen.

Any PIPA courses that you attend are automatically added to your CPD points, and your PIPA certificates can be easily accessed via your account. The CPD points tracker shows you how close you are to obtaining 40 points within any particular CPD cycle. We would very much like to encourage you to take advantage of our new CPD system. It is a convenient way of storing and accessing a permanent record of your CPD in one place, which is particularly useful should you wish to move companies. You can also download a report of your CPD, and all of the associated documents should you require it, at any time. In addition to the convenience of the system, however, is the recognition of your professional achievements. The use of postnominals can help promote awareness of your expertise to your colleagues as well as helping to demonstrate the skills and expertise of pharmacovigilance and medical information professionals to the wider industry. If you have any questions, or require any assistance with using the system, please do not hesitate to reach out to us via pipa@pipaonline.org For further guidance on how to upload activities to the system, please watch: https://vimeo.com/622558029/71617cc1c4

Anne Turnbull

Operations Manager PIPA