Tag Archives: malpractice

Weaving data, human stories into compelling series on dental deaths

Brooks Egerton

Brooks Egerton

In early 2014, a 4-year-old Dallas boy named Salomon Barahona Jr. died after undergoing sedation for a dental procedure.

The child’s death spurred Dallas Morning News reporter Brooks Egerton to embark upon what turned out to be a major reporting project – an 18-month investigation of dental safety in the United States.

Egerton sifted through thousands of records detailing patient harm and endangerment drawn from many sources: state and federal regulators, police, coroners, academic researchers, courts, litigators, insurers, dental schools and dentists themselves. Continue reading

‘On The Media’ covers NPDB controversy

This week’s “On The Media” show features AHCJ President Charles Ornstein discussing the public use file of the National Practitioner Data Bank.

Conference call: Future of NPDB Public Use File

Journalists can participate in a call with HRSA officials on Oct. 13, 1-2 p.m. ET. Please register in advance.

Listen to On The Media

As regular readers of Covering Health know, this is an important file that has been used by patient safety advocates, reporters and other researchers to report on medical disciplinary actions, lax oversight and loopholes at state medical boards. The Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, took the file offline on Sept. 1 following a complaint from one doctor’s lawyer.

AHCJ and other journalism groups have protested the removal of the file and have called for it to be returned to the public site. U.S. Senator Charles Grassley has joined the protest with a letter to the HRSA administrator that demands answers to his questions about why this file is no longer publicly available.

Duff Wilson of The New York Times wrote a blog post about the file being taken offline and Grassley’s letter. For complete coverage of the issue, please see AHCJ’s Right to know news.

Journalism organizations offer data government blocked from public

Another development in the protest by three key journalism groups to the Obama administration’s decision to block public access to a public database of physician discipline and malpractice: Now, Investigative Reporters and Editors, working with the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists, has posted the data for download, free to the public.

The data are posted for the entire U.S. in the original text format with documentation. IRE has also made available state-by-state Excel spreadsheet files.

On Thursday, the groups sent a letter protesting the decision to pull offline a the Public Use File of the National Practitioner Data Bank. The government has made this file available online for years, and reporters have used it to call attention to lax oversight of physicians across the country.

The public version of the database does not identify physicians by name or address, but it does provide other useful information about hospital sanctions, malpractice payouts and state disciplinary actions against every doctor in the country.

“We applaud IRE for making this data available for free to the media, researchers and the public,” said Charles Ornstein, AHCJ’s president. “While the government has decided that this ‘public use file’ should no longer be public, our organizations believe that it continues to be a critical resource. I encourage reporters, even those who have never used it before, to look for stories within it now.”

Journalists have used the data for years to draw attention to troubled physicians and state inaction. Recent examples include the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Duluth (Minn) News-Tribune and The Kansas City Star. Other examples over the years have included The Hartford (Conn.) Courant and the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer.

The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration threatened a reporter from The Kansas City Star with financial penalties if he proceeded to write a story about a local neurosurgeon using information he gleaned from the public version of the database on the agency’s website. The newspaper published its story anyway on Sept. 4. The doctor’s attorney complained to the agency, prompting officials to remove the database from its website on Sept. 1.

Several news outlets – The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Reuters and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – are following the story.

AHCJ, other journalism organizations protest removal of data from public website

The Association of Health Care Journalists, joined by the Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors, sent a letter to the Obama administration today protesting its decision to pull offline a public database of physician discipline and malpractice payments.

Read the letter sent by the journalism organizations to Mary K. Wakefield, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Stories using the NPDB

The Kansas City Star

• Doctors with histories of alleged malpractice often go undisciplined
• Obama’s HHS shuts down public access to doctor malpractice data

Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune

• AHCJ article: Duluth News Tribune exposes malpractice allegations
• As Duluth hospital reaped millions, surgeon racked up complaints
• Multiple allegations against former St. Luke’s doctor
• Ailing patients speak out about former Duluth doctor
• Wisconsin restricts former Duluth doctor’s license
• In Texas, former Duluth surgeon may be sanction-free
• Federal database of malpractice cases doesn’t make public doctors’ names, or where they practice

Propublica

States Fail to Report Disciplined Caregivers to Federal Database

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

• Reporters encounter hospital’s lack of transparency
• Tip sheet from Bernhard & Kohler on researching health professionals.
• Award entry: Who Protects the Patients?
• Serious medical errors, little public information
• Caution urged with facedown restraints
• Doctor lost hospital privileges but kept clean record
• Girl, 16, dies during restraint at an already-troubled hospital

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

• Dangerous Doctors
• AHCJ article: Records show ‘dangerous doctors’ rarely face discipline
• Tip sheet from Gina Barton on state oversight of health professionals

Connecticut Health Investigative Team

• Disciplined Docs Practice Freely In State

West Hawaii Today

Medical malpractice in Hawaii
Diagnosis-related claims among top reasons for suit

Public Citizen

• Hospitals avoid reporting disciplined docs: The nonprofit group released a report showing that hospitals nationwide are taking advantage of  loopholes to avoid reporting disciplined physicians to a national database.  The Miami Herald‘s John Dorscher, the Detroit Free Press‘s Patricia Anstett and the Contra Costa Times‘ Sandy Kleffman reported local versions of the story that are no longer available online.

Earlier stories about access to NPDB:

• Data Mine reports on access to practitioner data: The Center for Public Integrity focuses on the National Practitioner Databank and the lack of public access to information in the database.
• Access to list of disciplined health workers in limbo: NPR’s Joseph Shapiro looked into the status of the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank.
• Public Citizen posted an open letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explaining why the database is important, and details the consequences of keeping it under wraps.

AHCJ, SPJ and IRE called for the government to immediately restore access to the Public Use File of the National Practitioner Data Bank. The government has made this file available online for years, and reporters have used it to call attention to lax oversight of physicians across the country.

Pursuant to the law, the public version of the database does not identify physicians by name or address, but it does provide other useful information about hospital sanctions, malpractice payouts and state disciplinary actions against every doctor in the country.

As an example, the database would allow a reporter or researcher to discover that certain, unnamed physicians have been sanctioned repeatedly by their hospitals but never were disciplined by their state’s medical board. It would also be possible to find doctors with lengthy trails of malpractice who continued to enjoy clear licenses.

The groups also expressed their deep disappointment that the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration threatened a reporter from The Kansas City Star with financial penalties if he proceeded to write a story about a local neurosurgeon using information he gleaned from the public version of the database on the agency’s website. The newspaper published its story anyway on Sept. 4. The doctor’s attorney complained to the agency, prompting officials to remove the database from its website on Sept. 1.

The government said that it had to act now because reporters were able to link information in the data bank to specific doctors, and the law prohibits the public use file from identifying doctors. A HRSA spokesman said the data bank will be offline for at least six months and may never return unless the physician privacy concerns are adequately addressed.

AHCJ President Charles Ornstein said he was puzzled by HRSA’s sudden action because reporters have used the public version of the data bank for years to assist in their reporting and learn additional details about physicians they already had been researching.

“We are troubled that the Obama administration appears to have placed the interests of physicians ahead of the safety of patients,” Ornstein said. “Attempting to intimidate a reporter from using information on a government website is a serious abuse of power.”

Stories written by reporters using the public version of the National Practitioner Data Bank have drawn attention to troubled physicians and state inaction. Recent examples include the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Duluth (Minn) News-Tribune and the Star. Other examples over the years have included The Hartford (Conn.) Courant and the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer.

Some of these stories have resulted in new legislation and other steps that protect patients, by increasing transparency and sometimes toughening requirements on doctors.

The groups wrote that if HRSA determines the public version of the database violates the law in any way, it should seek swift legislative changes to remedy the problem and once again make the database available.

“In one stroke, the very administration that promised greater transparency not only excludes information of obvious public value to patients across this country but threatens legal action against a reporter for using public records,” said SPJ President Hagit Limor. “This is clearly outrageous.”

IRE President Manny Garcia said, “The removal of the Public Use File – whose very name means for public use – eliminates a valuable tool for journalists whose goal is to educate and protect the public. This database has allowed reporters to uncover flaws that have toughened legislation, and without a doubt, saved the lives of patients across the country.

“We are also stunned that a public servant has the hubris to threaten a health care reporter for doing his job. HRSA should be delighted that journalists are using public information to help saves lives, but in this instance the response is: get lost or get fined.”

Spreadsheet lists malpractice claims against VA

In its “FOIA Friday” feature, the Project On Government Oversight reveals a spreadsheet (XLS format) of claims against the Department of Veterans Affairs, including thousands related to medical malpractice.

The spreadsheet lists administrative claims, the first step in the VA’s process for filing claims.

Nick Schwellenbach explains more about the data:

The data provided has details on over 12,000 claims against the VA from 1989 to November 2008, although the data appears largely incomplete for the first several years. Not all of the claims are medical malpractice-related, but several thousand are. There are fields for the VA facility involved, the date the claim was received, the date of the last tort status (where the claim is in the administrative process), the date of that status, alleged negligence descriptions (none exist for non-medical malpractice tort cases), and amount paid out, if any. The spreadsheet is over two years old, so the latest tort status field may be out-of-date for many of these claims.

The spreadsheet includes 16 cases in which more than $1 million was paid out. The descriptions of the allegations are pretty vague but those 16 cases include:

  • Failure To Obtain Consent or /Lack Of Informed Consent; Improper Technique; Improper Performance; Improper Management; Delay In Diagnosis; Failure To Treat; Failure To Order Appropriate Medication; Failure To Monitor; Failure To Diagnose (i.e., Concluding That Patient Has No Disease or Condit[ion)]
  • Failure To Respond To Patient
  • Surgical or Other Foreign Body Retained
  • Unnecessary Procedure; Intubation Problem; Improperly Performed Test; Improper Management

It’s worth noting that another recent “FOIA Friday” also was related to health. It was a letter sent by the National Institutes of Health to Emory University “after the media exposed Dr. Zachary Stowe’s cozy financial relationship with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) while also receiving NIH grants to study antidepressants like GSK’s Paxil in pregnant women.”