Perhaps one way to solve your problem is to sub-award the conflicted
part of your grant to a third, independent party (possibly a local
governmental department) which then can assist pre-hospital providers
without causing a conflict of interest.

Part of the solution may also just come as the result of an open
communication between the funding agency, the state, and the various
subawardees (such as yourself).  Your hospital is obviously not the
only one that faces this problem.  In fact some of the other hospitals
may not even be aware of the problem, as you stated it.  You may be
able to help others by opening the channels of communication.

I hope my comments will help you find a solution.

Stephan Schaffrath

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 13:03:26 -0600
 RESADM-L Member <xxxxxx@SBLHS.ORG> wrote:
>RESADM-L'ers, especially those of you at hospitals,
>
>our hospital has just received a grant agreement from the state to
>award
>some federal funds from the HRSA Bioterrorism Grant. The State agency
>is
>administering the federal dollars as the primary grantee and has
>crafted
>agreements to subaward the dollars to hospitals at various levels in
>the
>State's tier of emergency resource hospitals.
>
>We have not developed a proposal for these dollars. But we have been
>asked
>to sign the grant agreement, which has several problems. Beyond the
>question
>of whether or not the agreement terms are reasonable, a question has
>arisen
>whether or not one of terms directs us to do something that we cannot
>legally do.
>
>The grant agreement directs the hospital to "correct priority
>deficiences"
>of "pre-hospital" providers (emergency medical services providers,
>ambulance
>companies) by providing them with needed personal protection
>equipment.
>Ignore, for the sake of this question, the issue that the grantee is
>directed to correct another organization's deficiency, and consider
>the
>question of conflict of interest. Can the hospital legitimately use
>grant
>(or any other) funds to purchase equipment for EMS providers?  Our
>Foundation VP has compared this to a situtation we backed away from a
>few
>years ago when we wanted to raise funds to buy 12-lead EKG equipment
>for
>ambulance companies. Even though we proposed treating all ambulance
>companies in our region equally for the EKG program, it was squashed
>on the
>basis that we would be "buying influence" with the ambulance
>companies and
>thus violating... I don't know, an Anti-Kickback law?
>
>I'm not sure the same argument would apply to the flow-through
>federal funds
>from the State because the State is directing the federal dollars to
>other
>hospitals, geographic boundaries apply, and our competitor hospitals
>would
>presumably also be receving funds to assist pre-hospital providers of
>emergency services.
>
>Your thoughts?
>
>-----------------
>Molly Daniel
>Grants Specialist
>Planning Dept.
>Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center
>1000 Health Center Drive
>Mattoon, IL 61938-0372
>tel. 217-258-2195
>fax 217-258-4135
>email: xxxxxx@sblhs.org <mailto:xxxxxx@sblhs.org>
>web: www.sarahbush.org <http://www.sarahbush.org>
>
>
>======================================================================
>  Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
>  subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are
>available
>  via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv
>Lists")
>======================================================================

Stephan Schaffrath
Grants Specialist
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Office of Grants & Sponsored Research
107B Stright Hall
Indiana, PA 15705
(724)357-2167
xxxxxx@iup.edu

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================