This selection of stories typifies Peter Eisler’s groundbreaking coverage of patient safety issues, revealing the dark side of a health care system where medical errors, unscrupulous providers and lax oversight leave an endless trail of damaged and exploited victims. Some are maimed by botched or unnecessary surgeries or by an object left inside their bodies by careless doctors. Others fall prey to physicians with records of misconduct so severe that they never should have been practicing in the first place. Among the most vulnerable victims are the elderly and disabled residents in hundreds of nursing homes who have had their life savings stolen by employees entrusted for their care. These are not isolated or rare events, as Eisler’s stories demonstrate. s been a systemic breakdown in government oversight and accountability, opening the doors to greed, negligence and ineptitude. Eisler’s original reporting uses an array of sources — state and federal data, legal records, academic studies — to expose the scope and impact of these problems. In a series of revelatory findings, he identifies the surgeries that are most likely to be done unnecessarily; he quantifies the number of hospitals that have not invested in new technologies to ensure that surgical sponges are not left in patients; he documents how often state medical boards fail to take action against the licenses of bad doctors; and he reveals that hundreds of nursing homes that have failed to protect residents’ savings from theft and mismanagement. Eisler uses the full range of modern story-telling techniques, including on-line videos, interactive graphics and links to documentary material, to help readers get the best possible understanding of the problems he exposes, their causes and effects, and the steps that can be taken to address them. He weaves powerful case studies into all his stories, providing real-world perspective from victims, medical personnel and government officials. Those accounts give his work a strong narrative thread that engages readers and amplifies his reports’ broader findings. With thoughtful balance and scrupulous documentation, Eisler’s reporting has stimulated important debates among patient advocates, the medical community and policy makers. He’s brought new problems into public view and cast new light on others that already were known. The result is an outstanding body of work that has built a potent case for meaningful reform in the way modern health care is delivered and regulated.
