I have been wanting to do something interesting with maps for awhile, and I thought a map of available media sources with no financial ties was as good a reason as any, so I created this one for people to identify themselves as individuals without financial ties to device or drug manufacturers for at least 5 years.
This is based on the following posts on my blog and on e-patients.net. Feel free to read those for more background.
“No financial ties” is defined as “I do not have any financial interest or ties to, and have not received any honoraria from, pharmaceutical or device manufacturers.”
To add your name/location, just hit the “Add” button in the map above. Provide whatever information you would like. Your address will not be shown, just your location. As an example here’s my entry: Ted Eytan.
If you’d like to go to the map directly and add yourself there, the link is here.
Feedback and comments welcomed.
4 Comments
Hi Ted does your definition of "honoraria" include mugs, pencils, lunches etc we received as medical students?
Hi Ravi,
Good question. Given that the audience here is journalists, why don't we exclude any gifts under $50 US. Open to any other suggestions,
Ted
Hey Ted– you might consider a three color marker (orange/yellow/green?) that marked 1/3/5 years or some such approach.
It is a changing environment and we've adopted a policy hospital-wide that goes into full effect January 1, 2009. My Department has been totally clean with Pharma and direct patient care equipment for 13+ years, but we do trials of non-patient care equipment (software, IT hardware, etc.) and accept support for that–mostly in the form of cost reductions for the purchase. So how do I list myself?
Regards to you and best wishes of the season./Steve
HI Steven,
Great point, and given that the purpose of this is to inform I think it would be useful to capture individuals such as yourself. What I did is add an additional field that says, "If not free of ties for 5 years, fee of ties as of (date)" so that you could add yourself and indicate an "as of" date.
With regard to cost reductions that come from piloting equipment, I think we should limit declaration to direct, personal financial gain. It would be up to anyone using this information to inquire about indirect financial gain in their sourcing, and by the same token, for people adding themselves to be accountable for the accuracy and currency of their statements.
This would allow a journalist using this information to use their judgement. Does that work and would it respect the work that you've done in this area? Thanks for thinking of this, and reinforcing the power of Web2.0 to improve ideas with others' experience. Keep up the great work,
Ted