STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER ADOPTS NEW POLICY TO RESTRICT INDUSTRY INFLUENCE

Stanford University Medical Center announced Sept. 12 it was enacting a new policy to limit the potential influence of device companies in its day-to-day clinical and educational activities.

The policy takes effect Oct. 1 and prohibits physicians on the center's campus or at off-site clinical facilities from accepting industry gifts of any size.

The new policy was unanimously approved June 16 by the medical school's executive committee and was adopted in August by the medical boards at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

The policy is similar to those approved by the Yale Medical Group in 2005 and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania earlier this year, Stanford said.

Under the new policy, medical equipment vendors will not have access to the hospitals or medical school without an appointment. Furthermore, faculty members involved in purchasing equipment "would have to disclose any financial relationships they or their family may have with the company in question and could be excluded from the decision-making process," Stanford said.

The policy also prohibits medical center faculty from publishing medical journal articles that have been ghostwritten by industry representatives, and reinforces the center's existing practice that faculty disclose related financial interests when they publish articles or make presentations.