May 2005

Academic medical center advertising may risk eroding public trust, study says

Most well‑known academic medical centers develop and distribute advertisements to attract patients. Yet, all of them lack a formal review process to assess the balance and straightforwardness of these ads, according to a study by researchers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Dartmouth Medical School (DMS).

The study was funded in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a Research Enhancement Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs and conducted at the VA Hospital in Vermont.

Several of the ads promote services of uncertain health value to the public and, in some cases, appear to place the financial interests of the medical centers ahead of the interests of patients, the authors concluded.

"We found it interesting that similar advertising practices by pharmaceutical companies have been criticized for creating demand for services and failing to present balanced information, but no one seemed to be turning the same critical eye on ads from academic medical centers," said Dr. Robin Larson, DMS instructor in medicine and the study's lead author.

Published in a recent issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study examined marketing practices of the 17 academic medical centers named to the US News & World Report's2002 honor roll of "America's Best Hospitals." The researchers, all DMS faculty and members of the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction, VT, interviewed each center's marketing department and obtained all non‑research‑related print advertisements distributed by the honor roll centers during 2002.

They learned that while 16 of the centers advertise to attract patients, none have a formal process for reviewing the ads to assure balance and straightforwardness. Of the 122 ads aimed at attracting patients, the most common marketing strategy involved an emotional appeal to induce feelings of fear, hope, or anxiety about a health risk.

The researchers also found that several of the advertisements promoted tests or services with unclear health benefits (for example, full body CT scans) and all but one of the ads for specific services failed to note potential harm or side effects of the treatments they were promoting. Several of the ads were for cosmetic procedures.

SOURCES: "Advertising by Academic Medical Centers," Robin J. Larson; Lisa M. Schwartz; Steven Woloshin; H. Gilbert Welch Arch Intern Med. 2005;165:645‑651.

Dartmouth Medical School News Alert, Mar. 28, 2005.