2020 American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics: A Consensus Conference Report

4. Oversight of the process by completely independent organizational personnel to ensure compliance. This section discusses this process as it applies to associational and intellectual interests and in the context of educational activities, publications, peer review, research data, technology, and expert testimony. The many other contexts in which an interest can create COIs are beyond the scope of this section. The task force supports the existing relevant policies and guidelines of the ACC and AHA, National Academy of Medicine (NAM), ACGME, AMA, and National Institutes of Health, all of which have been carefully created and vetted, 32 and makes recommendations that merit further consideration in the implementation of this process.