Is this just a technical bloop or an example of the insidious nature of the marketing conducted by those in the robotic surgery medical-industrial complex?
Back in March, nurse Kathy Day and others in Maine were excited about the arrival of Dr. John Santa to address a "Maine Quality Counts" town hall meeting. As noted on the MQC website:
Maine Quality Counts is an independent health care collaborative committed to improving health and health care for the people of Maine by leading, collaborating, and aligning improvement efforts.
Dr. Santa is the Director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center and is an advocate for greater patient and family participation in their care. He has said, for example: "The best situation for a patient [is] for doctors to be in partnership with friends and family, to work as a team that [has] no barriers of any kind."
The event was planned for one of the Eastern Maine Health System locations.
Kathy, who is well known in her own right as a patient advocate in Maine, agreed to be interviewed by the local television station for a promo. The text presented to viewers was fine:
Don’t miss an opportunity to improve your healthcare next week in Brewer.
Maine Quality Counts is hosting a discussion involving the relationship between patients and healthcare providers.
Doctor John Santa will be streaming from Augusta with a keynote on what he says are risky tests and procedures patients often encounter.
You’ll be able to ask questions.
“It’s scientifically proven that if patients are more engaged in their own health care and in their visits in the doctors office even in the hospital that they have they end up having a better outcome,” says Kathy Day, who is involved with Maine Quality Counts. “They have safer care. They have care that they’re more satisfied with.”
The meeting is Monday night at the Cianchette Auditorium at Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems. It starts at 5:30 p.m.
But now look at the video that was inserted in the midst of the message. Hmm, something looks familiar!
And just to nail the product placement, this shows up a few seconds later:
Look, I don't know who did the switch to hijack a patient-centered message with an advertisement for the EMHS robotic surgery program. Maybe the television station just had an old "B" roll lying around and used it as visual filler--but let's think about what it means that such a clip was in the news department library. I'd feel a lot more confident, too, about this being an inadvertent lapse if it were the only misleading action related to the EMHS program. But as we scan through the health system's website, we find the standard inaccurate representations about this modality, i.e., comparing robotic surgery with open surgery as opposed to manual laparoscopic procedures:
Robotically-assisted surgery is one of the most effective and least invasive surgical treatment options available. Instead of traditional open surgery with a several inch-long incision, similar results can now be accomplished with five small incisions; the largest of which is smaller than the size of a dime. Smaller incisions are not the only benefit to patients. Robotically-assisted surgery also leads to:
Back in March, nurse Kathy Day and others in Maine were excited about the arrival of Dr. John Santa to address a "Maine Quality Counts" town hall meeting. As noted on the MQC website:
Maine Quality Counts is an independent health care collaborative committed to improving health and health care for the people of Maine by leading, collaborating, and aligning improvement efforts.
Dr. Santa is the Director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center and is an advocate for greater patient and family participation in their care. He has said, for example: "The best situation for a patient [is] for doctors to be in partnership with friends and family, to work as a team that [has] no barriers of any kind."
The event was planned for one of the Eastern Maine Health System locations.
Kathy, who is well known in her own right as a patient advocate in Maine, agreed to be interviewed by the local television station for a promo. The text presented to viewers was fine:
Don’t miss an opportunity to improve your healthcare next week in Brewer.
Maine Quality Counts is hosting a discussion involving the relationship between patients and healthcare providers.
Doctor John Santa will be streaming from Augusta with a keynote on what he says are risky tests and procedures patients often encounter.
You’ll be able to ask questions.
“It’s scientifically proven that if patients are more engaged in their own health care and in their visits in the doctors office even in the hospital that they have they end up having a better outcome,” says Kathy Day, who is involved with Maine Quality Counts. “They have safer care. They have care that they’re more satisfied with.”
The meeting is Monday night at the Cianchette Auditorium at Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems. It starts at 5:30 p.m.
But now look at the video that was inserted in the midst of the message. Hmm, something looks familiar!
And just to nail the product placement, this shows up a few seconds later:
Look, I don't know who did the switch to hijack a patient-centered message with an advertisement for the EMHS robotic surgery program. Maybe the television station just had an old "B" roll lying around and used it as visual filler--but let's think about what it means that such a clip was in the news department library. I'd feel a lot more confident, too, about this being an inadvertent lapse if it were the only misleading action related to the EMHS program. But as we scan through the health system's website, we find the standard inaccurate representations about this modality, i.e., comparing robotic surgery with open surgery as opposed to manual laparoscopic procedures:
Robotically-assisted surgery is one of the most effective and least invasive surgical treatment options available. Instead of traditional open surgery with a several inch-long incision, similar results can now be accomplished with five small incisions; the largest of which is smaller than the size of a dime. Smaller incisions are not the only benefit to patients. Robotically-assisted surgery also leads to:
- Shorter hospital stay
- Less pain and scarring
- Faster recovery
- Quicker return to normal activities
4 comments:
Thank you Dr Levy. I couldn't have said this better myself. Considering that the news team and I were not allowed to do our public interest interview in the EMHS administrative building, they certainly came out "ahead" in this news piece with a big push for their robot. I had a robotic hysterectomy for uterine cancer at Maine Medical Center in 2011, and I had an uncomplicated recovery. Since then I have learned about the troubles with the Robot, and the real statistics about complications. I have also learned about the relentless, and shameless advertising and how Hospitals buy into it. Had I been consulted, I would not have appeared in the same video with a DaVinci robot"advertisement".
Thanks for the "Dr," Kathy, but I'm not one!
DaVinci Sysytem advertising is ubiquitous and misleading in the extreme. It has changed recently, insofar as if you go to Intuitive's website they no longer make the claims they once did regarding for example--prostatectomy. Product placement ads persist. The news org should be called out on this and I think they might respond favorably. They used to cite "scholarly" articles which were (when I examined these) were either not a study of the particular claim they were making, or were poor quality studies, i.e. single institution, or single surgeon.
The request to record a TV promo for this session on our campus was only denied because prior arrangements were not made. Our policy is whenever media are onsite they must escorted by someone from Community Relations. This is a direct effort to protect patient privacy – HIPAA! We can’t have media taking pictures for broadcast without oversight. Since they showed up unannounced, and because CR staff was already out on prior assignments, and I was alone in the office on a long-scheduled and lengthy conference call, I requested the promo be recorded at the TV station or that they make arrangements to return at a time when we could accommodate. We voiced our concerns with Quality Counts, including that TV videotaping was scheduled on our campus without first checking to see if we could staff it. I worried at the time this would come back on us as being disagreeable. Our only role was to be a host site for this timely and important event. We offered our facilities and staffed the event. Quality Counts assured me that they and the involved parties understood our concern for patient privacy and apologized for not making prior arrangements. They assured me that our only role was to be a volunteer host site, a role we embraced for this timely and important event. It is unfortunate that our good efforts in a session devoted to patient safety have come back on us because of our focus on patient confidentiality.
As for the robot video being inserted in the promo, EMHS did not have a role in that. The TV station has reams of news footage from our hospitals, including robotic surgery, and often will insert file video as cover for interviews. They did not ask for our opinion or permission, and they do not have to since it was footage from prior newscasts. They own it. Quality Counts and/or Kathy Day are free to call the station and ask that the promo be discontinued …. They likely will not reedit and repost video in July for an event that occurred the previous March.
Suzanne Spruce
Chief Communications Officer
EMHS
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