Sales representatives for medical device companies have been attending surgeries for years, but hospital leaders may start to take a closer look at whether these reps should be in the operating room, according to NPR.
As the baby boomer generation ages, hospitals are seeing exponential growth in device-dependent procedures like total joint replacements, and insurers are increasingly telling hospitals they will only pay a fixed price for these procedures. This bundled payment approach is prompting hospitals to scrutinize device costs and the salespeople selling the latest models.
Hospitals are "starting to figure out what these reps make for a living. They feel like they're making too much money, and I think that's why they want them out," Brent Ford, a former sales rep who now works for HealthTrust, a firm that handles contracting and purchasing of hospital supplies, told NPR.
Device reps say they observe surgeries since they are experts on specific devices and have sometimes observed more surgeries with a certain device than any individual surgeon.
The reps' experience can be helpful to healthcare teams since it has become challenging for hospital staff to keep up with constant design changes for systems used in common procedures like joint replacements, said Chris Stewart, a former rep for medical device manufacturer Stryker.
But critics of having device reps in ORs say the reps attend surgeries to strengthen their relationships with certain surgeons, persuading them to pick one brand of a device over a competitor's.
Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD, a professor at Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University who studies the relationships between industry and physicians, says reps should be banned from ORs. Dr. Fugh-Berman's biggest concern is safety, including sterile protocol violations.
In her research, she anonymously interviewed reps who said they are told to always push the latest, most expensive products, even when older versions have more solid evidence behind them.
"The newest device is not necessarily the best device," she said. "In fact, it may be the worst device. What we need are skilled helpers in the operating room who are not making money off of the choices of the surgeons."
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