Outsourcing practice-based education: The role of industry representatives and implications for clinical expertise

In an era of significant human and fiscal constraints, hospitals increasingly rely on industry representatives to fill gaps related to practice-based education. Given their dual sales and support functions, the extent to which education and support functions are, or ought to be, fulfilled by industry representatives is unclear. We conducted an interpretive qualitative study at a large, academic medical centre in Ontario, Canada, during 2021-2022, interviewing 36 participants across the organization with direct and varied experiences with industry-delivered education. We found that ongoing fiscal and human resource challenges prompted hospital leaders to outsource practice-based education to industry representatives, which created an expanded role for industry beyond initial product rollouts. Outsourcing, however, generated downstream costs to the organization and undermined the goals of practice-based education. To attract and retain clinicians, participants advocated for re-investment in practice-based education in-house, with a limited and supervised role for industry representatives.