Corporate Transparency

As I read the "Origins of Social Media" article, something that stood out to me was transparency.  The article states that transparency is the key to successfully working in the blogosphere or community forums.  The article had a great example on Sony and how they didn't immediately fess up to their crime of embedding hidden software in their music CD's and their lag in response time damaged their brand equity more than their initial blunder. 

This concept made me think of the industry in which I work, medical device.  Something that is a hot topic recently is the "Physician Payment Sunshine Act" as part of the healthcare reform.  See #1 on this list: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/26/health/health-reform-fun-facts

1. How many goodies your doctors get

Is your doctor prescribing you certain drugs because those are the best for your condition or because of a pharmaceutical company's influence? Here's one way you can find out.

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act under health care reform requires drug, device or medical supply companies to report annually certain payments or things of value that they've given physicians and teaching hospitals. This could be speaking fees, consulting fees, meals and travel. So, you can find out which and how much companies pay doctors or health care workers. The companies are obligated to report annually about physician ownership and their financial investments.

All this would be available on a public website.

Effective date: Final rule is expected December 2014.

The way that CNN describes payments / things of value is exactly what my company is worried about.  My company relies on creating strong relationships with physicians to be able to understand what they struggle with in treating patients and innovate to advance medical care.  This does require transfers of value in order to accomplish this.  The transparency is not what is concerning to people, but it is the information without context.  They are seeing a picture of patients looking up their physicians to find out what companies are "transferring value" to them and making an interpretation on what conflicts of interest they may have. 

What medical companies should do is create the context for this public information.  That way when patients see that Dr. ABC received a flight, hotel and meal from a medical company, that it was to come to the company and educate employees on the disease states that their products treat.  Giving that context turns the public records into a marketing opportunity instead of a threat to their reputation.