HHE Perspectives on Hospital and Industry Partnerships | Page 7

not as ingrained in the hospital pharmacy cultural environment
as pharmaceutical companies who are involved with scientific
societies. The exception to this was those companies that sell both
pharmaceutical products and devices. there is limited contact. When asked how they saw hospital–
industry partnerships changing in the near future, the Turkish
Medical Director commented:
The situation in Turkey appears to be different as there are
new laws and legislations governing interactions between
physicians and industry in both public and private hospitals.
A Turkish Medical Director likened it to ‘a modified version of
the Sunshine Act 2 in the USA’. Apart from representative visits, ‘Most of the chain hospitals are not engaged
with joint projects or joint ventures with the
healthcare industry.’
Medical Director, Turkey Director
Chapter 2:
Opinions and perspectives on improving
value-based offerings
Key learnings:
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The patients must be as important to the manufacturer as they are to the hospital.
Hospitals understand that partnerships must be ‘win-win’ so they need manufacturers to set out clearly
what both sides will gain.
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There is an acceptance that some skills to develop outcome-based solutions may not be available ‘in-house’
and can be brought in via partnerships.
Some value-based initiatives work well locally, but may not be viable if scaled up.
There is a wariness in working with third parties particularly as partnerships need to avoid conflicts of interest and meet
all compliance rules.
For a project to be successful at implementing changes, there needs to be a shift in operational procedures – this may
include data recording to measure success or engagement with the staff delivering the changes.
Hospitals would prefer external support in specific areas such as oncology, theatre, general surgery, disease management,
population health and technology for medication compliance.
Attitudes to hospital–industry partnerships
T
he research revealed a wide range of views on hospital–
industry partnerships. There is an understanding that both
sides must benefit from the partnership, so the respective benefits
should be clearly explained at the start of the relationship.
Historically, hospitals have not always observed the benefits of
partnerships – including financial benefits – which may affect
their willingness to engage in the future. A German Pharmacy
Director commented that most of the time they had ‘not seen the
revenue realised for the hospital and so the tendency was not to get
drawn into partnerships with industry’.
Clear areas of agreement between the stakeholders was a wariness
within hospitals of engaging with third parties, along with the need
to be able to show that any partnerships both avoided conflicts of
interest and met all compliance rules. Other respondents stressed
that there was a disconnect between the objectives of the healthcare
system and that of the industry. In particular, the Turkish Medical
Director felt that a good medical system consisted of three pillars
(research, education and patient care), but the interactions of
industry with hospital stakeholders tended to focus mainly on the
introduction of new products in the market.
2. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act (section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010) requires medical product manufacturers to disclose to the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) any payments or other transfers of value made to physicians or teaching hospitals.
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HHE 2018 | hospitalhealthcare.com