1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
Business of Health Care Beat: four stories on hospitals and pharmaceutical firms.
All by Jim Doyle.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
"Drugmaker's quick slide from the top," April 4, 2010
"Hospitals tangled in owners' troubles," June 27, 2010
"Area hospitals battle infections," Aug. 15, 2010
"Cases shed light on drug firm's tactics" Oct. 4, 2010
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
"Drugmaker's quick slide from the top": A blow-by-blow account of KV Pharmaceutical Co. downfall, including its checkered history, family ownership interests and squabbles, executives' key mistakes, and a corporate ethic gone awry.
"Hospitals tangled in owners' troubles": An investigative story of a failing St. Louis area hospital, a rare glimpse into the hidden financial world of distressed hospital chains and a scandal involving the potential loss of $500 million in investor funds.
"Area hospitals battle infections": A close examination of the infection rates (surgical site and central line) of two dozen hospitals in the St. Louis area, based on five years of data.
"Cases shed light on drug firm's tactics": A story-behind-the-story of Forest Laboratories' criminal guilty plea that resulted from its aggressive marketing of unapproved antidepressants that were prescribed by pediatricians to children.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
For the hospital infections story (and follow-up), I used electronic data from state health agency and business of health care advocates, which I crunched and analyzed using Microsoft Access; and also reviewed the findings of a local business health advocacy group. For the drug company stories, I relied mainly on Securities and Exchange Commission records; Food and Drug Administration documents; federal criminal and civil enforcement actions; lawsuits by investors, employees and consumers and their families, including wrongful death actions. For the Forest Park Hospital story, I pored over federal bankruptcy records in Florida and Arizona, including a receivership case; SEC administrative actions; lawsuits in different states by investor groups; local lawsuits by contractors, vendors, doctor's groups; Medicare records; and hospital property records including real estate sales, leases, and leaseback arrangements with health care equipment providers.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
For these stories, I relied heavily on interviews with federal prosecutors and regulators, Wall Street analysts, board members, plaintiffs' attorneys, defense lawyers, community leaders, hospital and pharmaceutical executives, health care consultants, state health and labor officials, business health advocates, doctors, nurses, pharmaceutical production workers, and business management experts.
6. Results (if any).
There is no provable linkage to my stories, but the principal subject of my KV Pharmaceutical stories resigned from the board; I attribute this to regulatory pressure and media coverage. Similarly, the executive of Forest Laboratories who testified falsely before the Senate resigned from the company a few weeks after my story highlighting his testimony and the company's sordid record was published. My infection story led to a follow-up on state purging of infection data that led to the health agency's decision to change its practices and keep the publicly reported data available to consumers.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
I ran several follow-up stories on KV Pharmaceutical after the April 4 profile, including front-page and business cover stories about the company's layoffs, the former chief executive's resignation, and related matters. My followup, front-page story on hospital infections focused on the Missouri health department's periodic purging of infection data from its web site. I wrote a follow-up, front-page story on the settlement of wrongful death actions against Forest Laboratories for marketing unapproved antidepressants to children. No corrections or clarifications were run on this work.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Find knowledgeable mentors and cultivate independent sources to gain a thorough understanding of the topics you write about. Take every precaution to bulletproof your stories, knowing that health care industry coverage can be a volatile, controversial field and that any and all errors will be challenged. Make sure your editor plays devil's advocate, confronting your approaches to stories. Train your editor to handle your final copy extremely carefully, knowing that precision is paramount and the key to survival in this type of reporting.