Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Pharmaceutical Companies / 06.07.2022
Geisinger Study Found 79 Physician Contributors to UpToDate and DynaMed with Potential Conflicts of Interest of Nearly $8 Million
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
SooYoung VanDeMark, MBS
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
Scranton, Pennsylvania
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Health care providers utilize subscription-based, point-of-care databases such as DynaMed and UpToDate to provide clinical care guidance and remain current on the latest evidence-based findings. Both of these websites maintain this content through a cadre of physician contributors who write and edit articles for these sites. These physician contributors are required to self-report any conflicts of interest (COI) as outlined by the respective policies on each website. However, prior COI research into similarly self-regulated areas, such as medical and pharmacology textbooks, and clinical practice guidelines, has found both appreciable potential COI and inconsistencies between self-reported and industry mandated disclosures (1-3).
This study (4) explored the accuracy of physician contributors to DynaMed and UpToDate by comparing their self-reported disclosure status with the financial remunerations they received from the healthcare industry (e.g., pharmaceutical companies) as reported to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Open Payments database. Physician contributors who reported “nothing to disclose” on their respective article topic but had an entry on Open Payments for having received money from industry, were classified as discordant and, thus, as having the potential for a COI. Additionally, total remuneration, gender, and payment category were investigated more in depth for each database.
(more…)