UMass Medical School has some of the strongest policies governing clinical conflicts of interest (CCOI) among academic medical centers, according to an assessment completed by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP). UMMS received aPolicy Strength Average score of 2.7 on a scale of 0 to 3, placing it in the 98th percentile nationwide.
Further, this score earns UMMS status as one of only two academic medical centers in Massachusetts considered to have exemplary model policies that meet or exceed best practice recommendations. UMMS received the highest classification of “stringent” for nine out of twelve policy areas, including gifts, meals, drug samples and ghostwriting.
“Overall, the University of Massachusetts Medical School has some of the strongest policies among academic medical centers,” wrote principal investigator Susan Chimonas, PhD, and co-investigator David J. Rothman, PhD, of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons.
While IMAP doesnot publicly assign letter grades or rankings, each institution was provided with an analysis of its policies in twelve areas of CCOI. Details of UMass Medical School’s evaluation in each policy area can be viewed in IMAP’s newly updated Clinical Conflict of Interest Database.
