Quarterly Compliance Quandary

December 2007

You are a direct care provider in a UMG clinic and a medical supply vendor is providing an educational luncheon seminar on a day you are working. The vendor is providing pizza, soda and also drops off appointment pads and clipboards with the company’s logo as “token” gifts for the staff of the clinic. You have attended at least three other seminars provided by this company this year. Should you attend and take part in the lunch? Does doing so violate any ethical standards? Should you take the items left as gifts and use them in your daily work seeing patients? We encourage you to think about what you would do in this situation. What ethical rules apply and what is the “right thing to do?”

Things to Consider

The State Code of Ethics considers that gifts can influence you, the state employee, and therefore restricts or prohibits gifts due to the potential conflict of interest they may create. The University’s Guide to the State Code of Ethics prohibits you from accepting gifts from donors “doing business with or seeking to do business with the University,” so the vendor in our “quandary” falls into that category.

Some small gift items can be accepted however, but they specifically include items valued at under $10 per item (up to an aggregate per year of $50 per vendor). Additionally, food and beverage totaling up to $50 in a calendar year per vendor may be accepted. It is important to note that “gifts,” food or beverage from different representatives from the same company must be considered one vendor. Under State Ethics Law you are expected to know whether you have already accepted food and beverage at the $50 limit in the calendar year, and if so, you may not accept this lunch or you run the risk of violating the Ethics Law.

The next question is whether you may accept the token gift. The items noted in our “quandary” would probably fall under the $10 limit, so you could accept them unless you have accepted other gifts that year from the same vendor that would exceed a total value of $50.

Have we answered all the ethical questions? Maybe not. Consider the question of the message we give to our patients if we use vendor-marked clipboards, notepads, pens, calendars, etc. where patients easily see them. Are we saying that we endorse a particular drug or product? Are we giving the message that the company has influence with us and that influence could affect the care we provide? Yes, we are.

What other messages might we be giving by open use of “gifts” in direct care of patients? Currently the UConn Health Center does not restrict use of these gifts in our work with patients, but many other organizations have adopted policies which prohibit the use of clipboards, mugs, pens, pads and the like in patient care areas. Some institutions have even stopped “free lunch,” so patients are not witness to food carts being wheeled through the waiting room by vendor representatives. What message do you want to give your patients?