A partnership between LSU and Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center to relocate some of LSU’s physician training programs to the Lake campus is inching forward with today’s non-binding memorandum of understanding between the two entities. The agreement allows LSU to move a number of inpatient graduate medical education programs from Earl K. Long Medical Center to the Lake’s Essen Lane campus. That means some patients currently being seen at EKL will be admitted to LSU’s teaching services on the Lake campus, which will expand its inpatients capacity by at least 60 beds.
The Lake also wants to expand its trauma center on the Essen Lane campus. The memorandum stipulates that LSU will buy or build a medical education building on or near the Lake’s campus to be used by faculty, residents, fellows and medical students. Lake CEO Scott Wester says a successful collaboration “is dependent on certain commitments from the state of Louisiana,” though any funding models must be sustainable given the state’s budget challenges and the uncertain future of health care funding in terms of the national picture.
“Our goal is to make sure we have doctors trained in and for Louisiana for the foreseeable future,” Wester says.—Steve Clark
