| Advisory opinion request regarding whether Steven Conrad, Professor at LSU Health Sciences Center, may provide compensated services to Baxter Healthcare at a time when Baxter Healthcare provides products to University Health and Willis Knighton Medical Center. |
|
Steven Conrad is a Professor at the LSU Health Sciences Center. He also has privileges at the University Health Hospital and Willis Knighton Medical Center. According to LSU Health Sciences, it has a cooperative endeavor agreement with University Health to provide all the doctors to the hospital now that it is under private management. Baxter Healthcare is a vendor at both hospitals.
Dr. Conrad seeks to enter into a service provider agreement with Baxter Healthcare to provide content development and speaking services on (1) the basics of CRRT (fundamental clinical basics of CRRT; discussion of why, when and how to properly initiate treatment as well as how to effectively deliver the therapy); and, (2) clinical topics related to the treatment of acutely ill patients and acute kidney injury (AKI) that may include but not be limited to: treatment initiation; long term implications of AKI and renal replacement therapy (RRT) for AKI; management of fluid overload in acutely ill patients; fundamentals and advanced theories of RRT and therapy effectiveness; and other clinical topics as mutually defined by Baxter and the speaker.
The presentations will be strictly educational and non-promotional. The service provider agreement provides that the services will not include content that relates to the use of Baxter products and the service provider shall submit presentation content for review and approval from the Advertising and Promotional Committee of Baxter to ensure compliance with government regulatory requirements. The service provider agreement also prohibits the entering into or participating in discussions involving the sale of Baxter therapeutics and devices, the arrangement for the utilization of Baxter therapeutics and devices or the referral of patients to use Baxter therapeutics and devices for which a claim for payment may be submitted to a US federal healthcare program.
|
|
La. R.S. 42:1111C(2)(d) provides that no public servant and no legal entity in which the public servant exercises control or owns an interest in excess of twenty-five percent, shall receive any thing of economic value for or in consideration of services rendered, or to be rendered, to or for any person during his public service unless such services are: (d) Neither performed for nor compensated by any person or from any officer, director, agent, or employee of such person, if such public servant knows or reasonably should know that such person has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant's agency; conducts operations or activities which are regulated by the public employee's agency; or has substantial economic interests which may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the public employee's official duty.
La. R.S. 42:1123(9) provides that the Code of Ethics does not prohibit the performance of services for compensation for any person, by faculty or staff members of a public higher education institution, provided the services consist of consulting related to the academic discipline or expertise of said public employee, or the continued performance of such services by former faculty or staff members of a public higher education institution subsequent to the termination of their public service and notwithstanding contrary provisions of R.S. 42:1121, and provided the services have been approved in writing by the chief administrative officer of the public employee's institution in accordance with rules and procedures established by the management board of the institution, which rules and procedures have been approved by the Board of Regents and the Board of Ethics.
|
|
|
To be made at agenda prep.
|
|
| Assigned Attorney: |
Tracy Barker |
|
|