Opinion 2: UMass Memorial Takes Stand On Gifts
By John G. Oo’brien
Special to the Worcester Business Journal
Our Vendor Relations Policy, which will go into effect July 1, draws clear boundaries between medical decision makers and industry, and prohibits clinicians from accepting gifts, sponsorships, meals, or anything of value from any vendor of clinical supplies.
Looking The Gift Horse In The Mouth
It has become commonplace in health care for industry vendors to provide such gifts and favors to health care providers, but there is growing evidence that doing so can influence medical decisions those providers make. We believe, whether or not such gifts have tangible impact in any given case, the mere appearance of undue influence is problematic, undermining both the integrity of our clinical decision making and the trust our patients have in us.
Over the course of nearly a year, UMass Memorial clinical leaders and administrators worked with colleagues from the Prescription Project, a consumer advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating conflicts of interest between physicians and industry, to craft a Vendor Relations Policy that promotes the integrity of the medical profession by ensuring that all clinical and purchasing decisions are free of even the appearance of inappropriate influence by outside parties. By embracing these strict but fair rules at UMass Memorial, we are among the first in the nation to take this important stand. We commend Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray for including a similar ban on industry gifts to physicians in her recently announced healthcare reform bill.
Far from depicting vendors as purely self-interested marketers, we are proud of the relationships we have fostered at UMass Memorial over the years, ones we believe further scientific discovery and medical innovation. Patients have long benefited from the creative collaboration of the bedside clinician and the manufacturer of a surgical device or medication. But lines can become blurred when anyone other than the patient appears to benefit from that relationship.
The intent of our policy is not to sever those relationships with industry, but to better manage them by underscoring our ethical and moral responsibility to our patients.
Recently rank-ed among the nation’s top academic health centers for quality by the University Health System Consortium, UMass Memorial takes great pride in providing state-of-the-art care to patients in Central New England. Our patients deserve the nation’s best quality of care without the appearance of undue influence. We didn’t develop this policy to fuel debate or to grab news headlines, although the policy has done both. We developed this policy because we firmly believe it is in our patients’ best interest.
John O’Brien is the president and CEO of Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health Care.
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