MINNESOTA HOSPITAL OPERATOR BANS GIFTS FROM DRUG COMPANIES

Do gifts from drug companies, both large (trips to exotic destinations) and small (pens and notepads), influence doctors to prescribe medication from the gift-giving companies? A 2006 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association states that even small gifts can affect doctor's prescribing decisions.

What can be done to minimize or eliminate this seemingly unethical effect? A Minnesota-based hospital operator, SMDC Health System, instituted an aggressive policy that bans all gifts from drug companies to doctors and went even further by ordering that all gifts including pens, notepads, and coffee mugs be purged from the hospitals.

From AP via Yahoo:

When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.

Trinkets, free samples, free food and drinks, free trips and other gifts have pervaded the medical profession, but observers say that's starting to change.

"We just decided for a lot of reasons we didn't want to do that any longer," Dr. Kenneth Irons, chief of community clinics for SMDC, said Friday.

So SMDC put together a comprehensive conflict-of-interest policy that, among other things, limits access to its clinics by drug company representatives. Employees suggested the "Clean Sweep" trinket roundup, Irons said.

Many of SMDC's items will be going to the health system of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which has three hospitals, and several rural health centers.