UF Health Jacksonville ranks among the best teaching hospitals in the nation for strength of conflict-of-interest polices, according to data released Sept. 29 by the American Medical Student Association.
AMSA analyzed more than 200 teaching hospitals on the strength of their conflict-of-interest (COI) policies. The AMSA Teaching Hospital Scorecard focused on COI policies directly related to industry marketing and education. Letter grades were used to assess each hospital’s performance in 14 potential areas of conflict of interest, also called “policy domains” on the scorecard.
UF Health Jacksonville was one of 35 hospitals to receive an “A.”
Some of the policy domains are: gifts from industry; industry-funded travel; ghostwriting and honorary authorship; existence of COI curriculum for staff and trainees; conflict of interest disclosure; and enforcement and sanctions of policies. In each domain, a hospital was given a score of either 3 for “model policy,” 2 for “good progress toward model policy,” or 1 for “policy is absent or unlikely to have a substantial effect on behavior.”
UF Health Jacksonville’s sister hospital – UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville – also scored an “A.” Among the rest of the 204 hospitals assessed, 111 of them received a “B,” 21 received a “C” and 27 garnered an incomplete.
AMSA said hospitals that scored an “A” had overall excellent policies that served to effectively prevent inappropriate industry marketing influences on medical education and training.
“We’re delighted to be recognized as one of the best teaching hospitals in the United States when it comes to conflict-of-interest matters,” said Russ Armistead, CEO of UF Health Jacksonville. “Through the years, we’ve implemented and refined conflict-of-interest policies that promote and help ensure outstanding ethical conduct throughout all realms of our operation.”
UF Health Jacksonville and UF Health Shands Hospital both led all institutions with the most model policies – 11 out of 14.
"Our faculty physicians and staff are honored to be part of a superb academic health center with a hospital that has such strong polices and guidelines in place,” said Daniel R. Wilson, MD, PhD, dean of the College of Medicine – Jacksonville. “Strong ethics are part of what makes UF Health one of the premier health care systems in the country.”
About AMSA
Founded in 1950, AMSA is the United States’ oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training. It has been evaluating COI policies at medical colleges for the past eight years. This is the first year it also assessed teaching hospitals on such policies.
For more information about the American Medical Student Association and its annual assessments, visit www.amsa.org.
About UF Health Jacksonville
UF Health Jacksonville is the region’s premier academic health center, a leader in the education of health professionals, a hub for clinical research and a unique provider of high-quality patient care. The 695-bed hospital has a number of specialty centers and is the region’s only Level 1 trauma center.