Clinical collaboration

Clinical collaboration is the collaboration of organizations, teams of professionals, or small groups of individual professionals, each having skills, equipment or information that will complement what their partner has, all seeking to be more effective. Choosing one's partner is important, and has been described as "similar to the accreditation process of Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations."[1] "CHOP Hub For Clinical Collaboration Arrives on the Skyline in University City, West Philadelphia" was a 2020 headline describing a coming 19-story medical building.[2]

While clinical collaboration, which has been described as a "culture"[3] rather than as something to be purchased,[4] is not a "full-asset merger,"[5] a clinical collaboration does aid the financial goal of "to maximize the value of" a franchise. It also gives more eyes to aid in reducing risk.[6][7]

Overview

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Clinical collaboration is not "one size fits all",[8] and its areas of potential effectiveness include medical/pharmaceutical research, healthcare/doctors and nurses, emergency room care, and ambulatory and ambulance services. One potential obstacle they all face is anti-trust law,[9][10] but proof of concept exists: partnership contract renewals.[11]

Other concepts affecting healthcare delivery are "clinical affiliation"[12][13] and "non-clinical collaboration."[14][15]

Medical research

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Cancer research is an example where clinical collaboration can advance state of the art.[16]

Pharmaceutical research

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Major pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer[17] and Bristol-Myers Squibb have arranged clinical collaborations with companies such as NeoImmuneTech,[18] Checkmate Pharmaceuticals and Kitov[19] for testing and evaluating the effectiveness of combinations of existing medicines. If the tested combination attains regulatory approval, "it opens up new patient populations for each company’s drug."[20]

Healthcare

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Clinical collaboration between facilities permits sharing the availability of specialists and high tech equipment, often involving specialized communication links to facilitate data sharing.[21]

Issues that must be prearranged include patient data privacy and security, including HIPAA compliance.[22] Some of this is software apps that go beyond standard data sharing using more "aware" software.[23]

Rural areas need it to provide service,[24] and small healthcare providers in large areas need it to survive.[5] In these seemingly asymmetrical arrangements, there is an avoidable potential for domination for which due diligence and preplanning and proper preparation is needed.[25]

Doctors and nurses

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Clinical collaboration, properly implemented, must be seamless to be most effective.[26] This includes overlapping staffing and concurrent shifts of doctors with varying specialties and focus, along with nurses and paramedics. The goal is not new, and the situation has improved with use of technology that enables going beyond paper-based records.[27][28]

Contrast to affiliation

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Even though there may be financial benefits to the arrangement,[21] it contrasts with financial affiliation, where profit is the driving motive. An example is where a research project is incurring major expenditures with cost writeoffs: "cost-sharing clinical collaboration" enables "building value" that goes beyond making money to "encouraging activity" that is high risk but, if successful in the long run, will save lives.[16] The medical director of the Mayo Clinic Care Network referred to "due diligence" in an article about Clinical Collaboration as an alternative to health care mergers and acquisitions.[29][1]

A well implemented medical facility clinical affiliation agreement "maintains each hospital’s independence in governance, budgeting, labor agreements and will not move or remove any local services."[30]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Is This the Best Alternative to Health Care M&A?". April 3, 2020.
  2. ^ Thomas Koloski (October 23, 2020). "CHOP Hub For Clinical Collaboration Arrives on the Skyline in University City, West Philadelphia". The building has an anticipated completion date of 2023.
  3. ^ "Creating a Culture of Collaboration to Elevate Infection Prevention and Microbial Stewardship". June 1, 2017.
  4. ^ M. Bruun-Rasmussen (2003). "Collaboration: a new IT-service". International Journal of Medical Informatics. MIE 2002 Special Issue. 70 (2): 205–214. doi:10.1016/S1386-5056(03)00037-6. PMID 12909171. clinical collaboration is associated with the shared clinical context to provide a record of ..
  5. ^ a b Jennifer Henderson; Shuan Sim (December 10, 2020). "Maimonides, Community Hospital ink deal for affiliation deal". Crain's New York Business.
  6. ^ "Ascom clinical services collaboration each step of the way" (PDF). Our clinical collaboration is essential to risk mitigation during the implementation of
  7. ^ "RefleXion Combination Therapy: Crossing the Divide". June 24, 2020. The goal of RefleXion and Merck & Co's clinical collaboration is to establish whether treating multiple tumors with BgRT is safe
  8. ^ L. Melby (2014). "Patients in Transition: E-Messages as a Tool for Collaboration". computer.org (IEEE Computer Society).
  9. ^ "Incyte Corporation Profile" (PDF). Reuters.
  10. ^ "How to Deliver the Right Care, Support Physicians" (PDF). (CMS) and the federal antitrust enforcement agencies have relaxed regulations and streamlined oversight to promote procompetitive clinical collaboration
  11. ^ John George (October 14, 2019). "Penn Medicine, Mercy Health to establish heart surgery program in Delaware County". BizJournals.com (Philadelphia). Penn Medicine, Virtua renew clinical collaboration for another three years
  12. ^ "Island's Hospitals: Corporate vs. Community". The New York Times. April 8, 2001.
  13. ^ "The View From: White Plains; A Partnership". The New York Times. November 28, 1993. This is our first clinical affiliation with
  14. ^ "Report to" (PDF). December 5, 2017. We have now formed a non-clinical collaboration with Wiltshire Council
  15. ^ "Employee Profile Bridget Gunn". BayStateHealth.org. April 18, 2017. the Non-Clinical Collaboration Award
  16. ^ a b "Exelixis Enters into a Clinical Collaboration for Three Phase 3 Combination Trials for Patients with Advanced Solid Tumors" (Press release). December 19, 2019.
  17. ^ "SWTX Company Profile & Executives". Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
  18. ^ "BRIEF-Neoimmunetech Announces Clinical Collaboration". Reuters. April 9, 2020.
  19. ^ "Kitov Pharma Issues CEO Shareholder Letter". The New York Times.
  20. ^ "How to Tame an Octopus: Managing the Proliferation of Clinical Collaborations". October 15, 2018.
  21. ^ a b "Healthcare Industry Trends".
  22. ^ "What Tech is Needed for Effective Clinical Collaboration Systems?". January 7, 2020.
  23. ^ Bill Siwicki (March 27, 2018). "Cancer center taps clinical collaboration tech to connect caregivers - including competitors".
  24. ^ "Solving IT Challenges for Rural Healthcare".
  25. ^ Daniel Bonilla; James J. Silk (2013). "From Empire to Empathy? Clinical Collaborations Between the Global North and the Global South". Yale Law School. neo-colonialism that shapes interactions between
  26. ^ "North Texas Burn Rehabilitation Model System". who work together seamlessly
  27. ^ Mousa Mahdizadeh; Abbas Heydari; Hossein Karimi Moonaghi (June 25, 2017). "Exploration of the process of interprofessional collaboration among nurses and physicians in Iran". Electronic Physician. 9 (6): 4616–4624. doi:10.19082/4616. PMC 5557143. PMID 28848638.
  28. ^ "Collaboration Starts with the Executive Team". June 19, 2018. to help provide better patient care
  29. ^ "An Alternative to Health Care M&A". Harvard Business Review (HBR). December 22, 2014.
  30. ^ Jen Jackson (December 15, 2017). "Hospital affiliation invite at issue". Watertown Daily Times.