Industry Relationships and Conflict of Interest

Below is a position statement from The CORE Institute regarding our physician relationships with other companies within the healthcare related industry, including but not limited to external medical device companies.

As our name suggests, our physicians, engineers, scientists, and graduate students are actively involved in clinical care, education, and orthopedic research.  Because of our mission, we focus our recruitment efforts on physicians who have superior academic and clinical training, and who also are actively involved in orthopedic research and education directed at advancing orthopedic surgery and improving patient outcomes.  Information about our physicians’ education, training and experience can be accessed here.

Our Division of Research and Development allows us to be actively involved in laboratory research aimed at improving the quality of medical care.  We are currently working on projects studying total knee replacement devices; ways to improve hip fracture implants; improved methods of fracture treatment; and release of antibiotics from implants in an attempt to reduce the risk of post-operative infections.  We are very proud of our success in this field and believe that we have contributed to the improvement in the care of orthopedic conditions.

Because of the qualifications of our physicians and other professionals, we often are approached by companies involved in or related to the improvement of the healthcare outcomes, processes, management in the healthcare industry and/or development of medical devices, instruments, and related equipment. Many of these companies know that our physicians have invaluable hands-on experience in the treatment of orthopedic problems, and that orthopedic surgeons frequently make important contributions to the development and improvement of devices and other equipment used in the treatment of orthopedic conditions. Surgeons and researchers at The CORE Institute are currently working with various companies, both large and very small, to help them create and improve products for patient care. We also have developed and patented products of our own that we have and/or will license or sell to industry.

Although CORE physicians donate a great deal of their time to the advancement of orthopedic research and education, they also enter into contracts that provide payment for some of their efforts.  Payment for the services provided by orthopedic surgeons may come in the form of hourly consulting fees for services provided by the physicians; royalties based on sales of products to which CORE physicians made important contributions (excluding sales of products used on our patients); and/or outright purchase of technologies.  All of these transactions are compliant with all federal and state laws.

The following is a current list of the CORE physicians who have contractual relationships with other healthcare related industry companies:

Many of our Physicians have an indirect ownership in The CORE Institute Specialty Hospital, a Physician owned hospital, https://www.thecoreinstitutehospital.com/, Banner Surgery Center – Union Hills, Elevation Surgery Center, Sunrise Ambulatory Surgery Center, Tri-City Surgery Center, Bone and Joint Surgery Center of Novi, and Lakes Surgery Center.