Those of us who attend medical conferences will be familiar with the conflict of interst statement that presenters make at the start of their talk. This helps us to understand where the speaker is coming from and what commercial associations they may have.
Informatics conferences have not traditionally had this requirement or actively encouraged speakers to do this. Should they?
Why don’t they have this requirement?
Perhaps it is because they are not seen as being “scientific” conferences. The conflict of interest declaration may come from requirements for publishing in scientific journals.
Why should presenters declare conflicts of interest?
Declaring real or perceived conflicts of interest (or declaration of commercial interest) helps us to understand better the perspective of the presenter and to assess their presentation from the context they are coming from. It’s not to say we disregard anything said by someone who has a commercial interest though.
It seems likely that in the medium term, improvments in Health IT may result in greater improvements in patient outcome than much of the more traditional “scientific” meidcal research. Why should we not apply the same standards to Health IT presentations?
Conferences such as this will influence the way public money is spent on behalf of patients. We should be able to understand the influences behind the presenters to help us make objective decisions
I certainly wouldn’t want to restrict people with a commercial interest from presenting, as they provide a valuable contribution, but I think it would assist with transperancy if we encourage open disclosure of these.
I’m interested to hear what others in this forum think.
Thanks for raising this question around declarations of conflict of interest by presenters. My understanding is the requirement to disclose relates to publication of academic (scientific) papers as evidenced based research and I’ve seen it done at nursing conferences as well. As you note, the work being done in the clinical informatics arena is likely to influence changes to practice which is already apparent in aged care services. If I’m presenting in general I disclose I’m a nurse as it highlights a possible mindset or perspective and aligns me with other nurses in the audience. If I also disclose that I’m a SaaS vendor it gives a different perspective again. It’s good to understand where a possible bias may lay and to have that declared is about increasing transparency. I think declaring conflicts of interest is therefore a good thing in being able to be discerning about the content of any presentation.
Absolutely concur.
Always want to know I am choosing to sit in to a sales pitch.
Not that I wouldn’t attend a sales pitch if I thought the patient could benefit but when “research” is exposed as “spin” after I have waisted my time I get grumpy.
M
From my recent conversation with @KimMundell about this, it hasn’t come up as an issue for HiNZ recently.
There is nothing stopping us leading from the front and doing our disclosures as a group if we all feel strongly about this. We are a growing voice in the field and many of us are presenting at DHW.
Having emerged from mat leave, my first post here is to say yes, absolutely, thanks for raising this Damon! I think it’s super important and I would take it even further and not just encourage, but make it compulsory
In particular promotion of specific Tech equipment or apps and programmes
But in some, infact many, instances, there is indirect promotion. Programmes, software hardware of choice mentioned during a presentation but with no direct marketting advantage to the presenter
The indirect promotion of certain programmes or software may not have any promotional advantage to the distributor, the supplier, or the presenter.
I think reviews about implementation of specific systems, health service integration of, rationale for choice, etc, should warrant a conflict of interest declaration
As chair of the scientific stream for the conference I agree that it is good practice to declare conflict of interest. Someone pointed
out that health informatics conferences don’t traditionally do this, but there’s no reason to continue with the tradition. I suspect we need a brief guideline for wording and what to cover – that’s what might make it hard to implement this month. There’s no
reason why CiLNs can’t be trailblazers and show everyone how it’s done this year.
I completely support this but we need to be careful about what we class as a conflict of interest. Though I am the clinical person leading the implementation and development of a product in our DHB I do not have a financial, commercial or legal relationship with the vendor. As a clinician working within a DHB we do not have influence over what systems we work with I do however have a professional relationship with them. In publication of an academic paper I would be required to disclose this. Even though it is not a true consultancy it does lead to product improvement. I would not want to diminish the message in a potential presentation by starting out with a disclaimer slide.
Another way of dealing with this would be for the HINZ organising committee to provide a disclaimer form that goes with the submission of presentation. This information then could be linked to the person’s bio. The organising committee could also use this to determine whether a presentation is an extended sales pitch.
Thanks for raising this. It would be good to have some parameters. Having worked as a charge nurse in the past, within a medication sector, we had positive relationships with some and overly persuasive relationships with other commercial entities which we had to manage with boundaries. My feedback to the sector in 2017 was that the future holds similar challenges and that instead of the pharmaceutical companies engaging with the clinical workforce, it will be the technology companies, for which we need readiness, because those relationships are very important but can lose track of patient needs.
Not just for conferences, but a one pager guideline for all healthcare services which may engage with technology systems.
Also, the awareness and readiness of senior governance for testing prototypes. In the limited exposure I have had, there is little uptake of testing. One person from an entire DHB cannot test prototypes sufficiently. The commercial vendors are at those sites wanting their product purchased with the NZ health dollar. We need to participate more to ensure it’s the right entity for the context.
Hi. I think a declaration should be made where a financial or commercial relationship exists. This would include for the individual and the employer. For example a speaker’s employer might enjoy discounted access to a product. For an individual monetary grants, or in kind support (eg conference attendance), and shareholdings in the product being discussed should be disclosed. I’m kind of surprised that people aren’t already doing this.
I think that conflict of interest declarations at the beginning of presentations is becoming more common and should be encouraged. I have seen an increase in these declarations in international health informatics conferences presentations.
