Physician Researchers Collaborate to Promote 'Trust'

Online healthcare fieldwork firms All Global, M3 USA and Medefield have partnered to launch 'The Trust Alliance', which will promote trust in online physician research through advanced industry standards and the development of best practices.

The partners say that by combining their existing efforts they can raise standards and encourage consistency across the industry. Planned initiatives include proactively monitoring and protecting against potentially fraudulent respondents, and ensuring transparency in the data collection process and the integrity of the data collected. A proposed universal blacklist of survey respondents' e-mail addresses will be available exclusively to alliance members.

Allan Bowditch, the former CEO and Chairman of GfK Martin Hamblin's Healthcare Division, has joined the initiative as 'Industry Liaison'.

Commenting on the launch, Bowditch said: 'This is an unprecedented initiative by responsible members of the industry, borne out of the realization that many of the challenges facing the sector can be best tackled through collaboration. I'm convinced that the measures under discussion will help to boost confidence in online physician research as a cost-effective means of supporting sound decision-making by pharmaceutical companies.'

Web site: www.thetrustalliance.org .