December 3, 2008
Academic Medical Centers should stop hiding industry payments
The Cleveland Clinic, one of the nation’s top health care systems, announced today that it will create a physician profile for all of its doctors and include information on corporate payments and consulting agreements.
Increased disclosure at such a respected hospital should spur other health systems to follow suit.
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been investigating conflicts-of-interest at academic medical centers around the country for several years. Cleveland Clinic was the subject of scrutiny after the WSJ uncovered ties between the CEO and a venture capital firm started by the hospital.
In North Carolina, where we have large and influential academic medical centers such as WFU Baptist Medical Center, Duke Health, and UNC Health Care, the state should require that those institutions receiving public money make similar disclosures.
Many academic medical centers are reluctant to ban industry relationships. Universities think blanket restrictions would hurt recruiting. Short of banning consulting and speaking arrangements, these influential hospitals should at least make industry payments public.
And if universities do not move voluntary, the General Assembly should threaten to withhold state funds until the academic health care systems tell us where corporate money is going. If the Cleveland Clinic can do it, UNC, Duke, ECU, and Wake Forest can do it too.
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[...] And if universities do not move voluntary, the General Assembly should threaten to withhold state funds until the academic health care systems tell us where corporate money is going. If the Cleveland Clinic can do it, UNC, Duke, ECU, … More [...]
[...] Read the original here: Academic Medical Centers should stop hiding industry payments [...]
[...] noted in a previous post that the state of North Carolina should require all academic medical centers that get public funds [...]