Covidien a leading global provider of healthcare products, announced the launch of Conscientious Collaboration,an online resource to promote the importance of ethical and clinically meaningful collaboration between Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) and the medical device and pharmaceutical industries.

Covidien is committed to open communication with its customers and partners to enhance innovation and help ensure improved patient outcomes. Consequently, the online resource is designed to help educate HCPs about Covidien's policies and practices for working with them, as well as the laws and codes of conduct that govern these relationships.

“Given the advancement of technology in healthcare today, the provider/industry relationship has never been more relevant or important, nor more scrutinized or challenged,” said Dr Michael Tarnoff, Covidien's Global Chief Medical Officer. “Conscientious Collaboration is Covidien's platform through which we can discuss our proactive approach to ensuring ethical interactions with our HCP partners. Our goal is to enhance innovation and patient safety by preserving the ability of healthcare professionals to partner with our Company in an appropriate manner.”

Legislation, such as the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, and similar state laws, has focused interest on the relationships between HCPs and corporations. Covidien believes that ethical collaboration between HCPs and healthcare products companies remains more important than ever, as a means to develop clinically relevant, innovative products, procedures and training that continue to improve patient outcomes and patient safety.

Covidien has taken a number of proactive steps to ensure its interactions with HCPs are compliant with relevant laws and regulations. In 2010, Covidien became the first large medical device company to stop direct sponsorship of HCP travel to third-party conferences and congresses worldwide.

Additionally, Covidien has: delegated decision-making authority for educational and research grant requests to a cross-functional team led by the company's medical affairs department in order to avoid conflicts of interest, created investigator-sponsored research grant committees to evaluate research grant proposals, separate from the commercial operations of the company and moved funding for Minimally-Invasive Surgical (MIS) fellowships to neutral organizations, such as the Foundation for Surgical Fellowships.

“Covidien puts a great value on the work of healthcare professionals and the clinical outcomes of our products,” said Joe Almeida, president, Medical Devices, Covidien, who spoke on the topic at last week's 2011 International Medical Device Industry Compliance Conference in London. “Therefore, it is imperative that we work together to preserve the tremendous real-world value of ethical relationships with healthcare professionals.”

Covidien is a leading global healthcare products company that creates innovative medical solutions for better patient outcomes and delivers value through clinical leadership and excellence.