Westwood – Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway and School of Medicine Dean Barbara Atkinson today presented a draft affiliation agreement between KU and St. Luke’s Hospital to the KU Hospital Authority Board.

The agreement, though incomplete, will go to the St. Luke’s board later this month for comment. The agreement allows St. Luke’s to use the KU brand, but does not yet include how much St. Luke’s will pay KU.

Atkinson said the draft follows almost exactly the guiding principles KU Hospital and the university agreed to in March. Atkinson, in response to questions from the board, also said another agreement would come later and would address St. Luke’s role in the comprehensive cancer center KU wants to create.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and several leaders at KU have expressed support for an affiliation between the KU Medical Center and Kansas City, Mo.-based St. Luke’s. Supporters have said a partnership would increase life sciences research in the area and help KU attain national status as a cancer treatment center.

But KU Hospital, which already has been a longtime partner of KUMC, has said a medical school-St. Luke’s affiliation would hurt KU Hospital and have no effect on attaining a national cancer center designation. St. Luke’s and KU Hospital currently compete for many of the same patients. Others, including some Kansas legislators, have said the deal might take doctors away from Kansas, because the proposed affiliation would permit Kansas University Medical Center residents to work at St. Luke’s institutions in Missouri.