Partners COI Policy: Better than Hopkins, But Not Great

Partners has anounced that it will implement a new conflict of interest policy. You can read the press release and summary of the policy here. I also recommend reading the excellent Boston Globe coverage here.

The good:

--A sweeping ban of all gifts, including meals and textbooks. This makes it a true gift ban, unlike John's Hopkins half hearted gift ban which I panned here.
--While industry funds for CME will still be accepted, they will have to be pooled into a hospital-wide President's Fund, or they will have to be approved by a newly established "Educational Review Board." Any program that passes muster with this new ERB must be jointly funded by at least two companies, lessening the potential for product-specific promotional bias.
--Faculty will no longer be allowed to be hired guns for drug companies.

The bad:

Let's get real. Industry funds education in order to promote their products. Thus, any CME program that holds itself out as "independent" of industry influence, is inherently a deception. It's rather embarrassing that the Harvard hospitals, with their incredible endowments, brainpower, and prestige, can't simply get it together to do the right thing, which is to say: WE WON'T TAKE ANY DRUG COMPANY MONEY FOR PHYSICIAN EDUCATION.