
HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream's solutions allow your healthcare workforce to be confident and competent with the knowledge they are upholding the highest of standards.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsNurseGrid and Keener - HealthStream's mobile apps built by nurses, for nurses - help nurses take control of their schedules, practice self-care, and build a more sustainable career.
View All ProductsTake the stress out of scheduling with real-time technology that engages nurses and healthcare workers from HealthStream.
View All ProductsProvide an easier way to view healthcare staff capacity insights while seeing a patient’s journey with HealthStream’s operational intelligence and machine learning products.
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreThis blog post is the second of three examining a recent high-visibility conflict of interest (COI) problem at a major national cancer research institution, with lessons for other healthcare organizations about dealing with similar compliance problems.
How an organization responds to a serious conflict of interest is very important and can have a great deal of influence on its reputation after a violation becomes public knowledge. A good example of this situation occurred when it was revealed in September 2018 by The New York Times and ProPublica that “one of the world’s top breast cancer doctors failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health care companies in recent years, omitting his financial ties from dozens of research articles in prestigious publications like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet” (Ornstein and Thomas, 2018).
The immediate response of Medical Director Dr. José Baselga, who eventually resigned altogether from Memorial Sloan Kettering, was that “he would correct his conflict of interest reporting for 17 articles” (Ornstein and Thomas, 2018) but that his considerable number of additional articles detailing early stages of research didn’t require the same kind of disclosure. Interestingly, in the same article, the Times describes this kind of research as having significant “financial weight because it helps companies decide whether to move ahead with a product” (Ornstein and Thomas, 2018). Tellingly, it appears that “in about two-thirds of Dr. Baselga’s articles that lacked details of his industry ties, one or more of his co-authors listed theirs” (Ornstein and Thomas, 2018).
The Organization’s Response
When a conflict of interest scandal becomes public knowledge, it can be a disaster for employee morale. The New York Times details an October 1 meeting of hundreds of staff doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, many of whom were “deeply angered by revelations that the hospital’s top medical officer and other leaders had cultivated lucrative relationships with for-profit companies” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2018). Speakers at the meeting “accused their leaders of letting the quest to make more money undermine the hospital’s mission” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2018).
The next day, Dr. Craig B. Thompson, the hospital’s chief executive, made a public commitment to be more open with staff about decision-making and “also committed to doing the ‘root-cause analysis’ requested by the doctors of how ‘egregious conflicts of interest,’ as one physician put it, had been allowed to happen” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2018). Why did this situation occur? The Times shares that “closer ties between nonprofit research centers like Memorial Sloan Kettering and corporations are being fueled by a rush of potentially breakthrough cancer treatments” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2018) and significant amounts of money are available to fund research in pursuit of these lucrative discoveries.
Within a day of this meeting, Dr. Thompson resigned his own seats on the boards of the pharmaceutical company Merck and Charles River Laboratories, a healthcare company (Thomas & Ornstein, 2018).
A Change in Memorial Sloan Kettering Policy
The ultimate result of this scandal has been for prominent cancer research institutions in the U.S. to begin to reevaluate their policies related to executives and their financial ties to private industry. Early in 2019, Memorial Sloan Kettering announced “that it would bar its top executives from serving on corporate boards of drug and health care companies that, in some cases, had paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2019). This decision is part of a wider reform effort “designed to limit the ways in which its top executives and leading researchers could profit from work developed” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2019) at the organization.
Memorial Sloan Kettering’s organizational peers are following suit, demonstrated at “Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, both of whose executives sit on corporate boards, [and] are among the institutions reconsidering their policies on financial ties” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2019). There’s much to be done; however, The New York Times cites a 2014 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study that uncovered that “40 percent of the largest publicly traded drug companies had a leader of an academic medical center on their boards” (Thomas & Ornstein, 2019).
References
Ornstein, C. and Thomas, K., “Top Cancer Researcher Fails to Disclose Corporate Financial Ties in Major Research Journals,” The New York Times, September 8, 2018, Retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/health/jose-baselga-cancer-memorial-sloan-kettering.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
Thomas, K. and Ornstein, C., “Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Season of Turmoil,” The New York Times, December 31, 2018, Retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/health/memorial-sloan-kettering-conflicts.html?action=click&module=Associated&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Medicine%20and%20Conflicts
Thomas, K., and Ornstein, C., “Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives’ Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals,” The New York Times, January 11, 2019, Retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/science/memorial-sloan-kettering-conflicts-boards.html?action=click&module=Associated&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Medicine%20and%20Conflicts
HealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsImprove the preparedness of your staff, increase survival rates, and cut costs with the advanced resuscitation training services from HealthStream.
View All ResuscitationNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream's solutions allow your healthcare workforce to be confident and competent with the knowledge they are upholding the highest of standards.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsDelivers everything you need to request, gather, and validate information about a provider to create a single source of truth for downstream processes.
View All CredentialingMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All Scheduling & Capacity ManagementNurseGrid and Keener - HealthStream's mobile apps built by nurses, for nurses - help nurses take control of their schedules, practice self-care, and build a more sustainable career.
View All ProductsTake the stress out of scheduling with real-time technology that engages nurses and healthcare workers from HealthStream.
View All ProductsProvide an easier way to view healthcare staff capacity insights while seeing a patient’s journey with HealthStream’s operational intelligence and machine learning products.
View All Products