Hospital sues to block release of records
Filed under: Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Public records
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the subject of recent reports that patients were at risk, has sued the Texas attorney general in an attempt to prevent the release of records requested by The Dallas Morning News.
Parkland filed the latest lawsuit — its fifth against the AG related to the newspaper — on Monday. This time the goal is to block release of Parkland police department records dealing with the psychiatric emergency room. The News is not seeking medical records.
Related:
- Reports detail Dallas hospital on brink of losing federal funds
- Dallas Morning News hospital investigation required extensive use of public records
Reports detail Dallas hospital on brink of losing federal funds
Filed under: Government, Health data, Hospitals, Public records
Late Friday, a damning federal report declaring that patients were at risk at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas was released. Even later that same day, Dallas Morning News reporters Miles Moffeit, Sue Goetinck Ambrose, Reese Dunklin and Sherry Jacobsen published their first report online (available to subscribers only).
The reporters write that the inspectors’ findings were released in response to a reform plan the hospital submitted just before its Friday deadline, a plan they report “involves hiring new nurses; rewriting some policies; retraining staff; retiring outdated medicines, supplies and equipment; and launching an intensive series of daily or weekly performance audits over at least the next five months.” According to those who have viewed the 600-page release, they have a lot to overcome.
“It appears safety was routinely relegated to a lower priority by other pressures,” said Vanderbilt University professor Ranga Ramanujam, a national expert in health care safety. “The CMS action is extraordinary. I am hard-pressed to think of an example of a similarly high-profile hospital facing the very real possibility of losing their CMS funding as a result of safety violations.”
The paper’s speedy, thorough response to the release shouldn’t be entirely surprising, considering that they’ve been out ahead of the story from the very beginning.
The top-to-bottom July inspection of Parkland was sparked by a News report of the death of a Parkland psychiatric patient in February. The hospital didn’t report the death to the Texas Department of State Health Services or to CMS, both of which then investigated the case. CMS regulators later determined that the rights of the patient, George Cornell, had been violated repeatedly by Parkland.
The hospital has until Sept. 2 to get its correction plan approved by CMS and to pass inspections, otherwise it could lose the Medicare and Medicaid funds on which it so heavily depends.
CMS failed to report disciplined providers
Filed under: Government, Health data, Hot Health Headline
ProPublica’s Marian Wang reports that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “essentially undermined” HHS efforts to create a national database of disciplined health care providers by failing to report disciplinary actions. The news comes from a report by the HHS Office of Inspector General (23-page PDF).
According to Wang, the investigation “found that CMS, which oversees health care programs serving about 45 million Medicare beneficiaries and 59 million Medicaid beneficiaries, took disciplinary action against numerous bad medical providers but did not report those actions to the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank.” As anyone who’s been following ProPublica’s award-winning “When Caregivers Harm” series knows, the database is chronically deficient, and – despite federal requirements – CMS isn’t helping.
CMS is required by law to report the following types of disciplinary action to the database: revocations and suspensions of laboratory certifications; terminations of providers from participation in Medicare; civil monetary penalties against all types of providers, managed care plans, and prescription drug plans.
Some of the data that should’ve been reported includes 148 sanctions imposed against laboratories in 2007 and 30 sanctions taken against managed care and prescription drug plans between January 2006 and July 31, 2009. From 2004 to 2008, the agency banned 45 nursing homes from participating in Medicare, and those actions were not reported until fall 2009, long after the required reporting timeframe, the inspector general’s office said.
According to officials, it was all just a big misunderstanding.
AHCJ members hear about latest health care data
Dozens of AHCJ members participated in a conference call today announcing data designed to track outpatient outcomes in hospitals. The data are part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital Compare database.
The database gives statistics, by hospital, on:
- How efficiently facilities use imaging equipment and keep patients safe from exposure to potentially harmful, unnecessary radiation.
- Rates of outpatient MRIs for lower back pain before other treatment - a potential indicator of wasteful spending.
- Rates of outpatient re-tests after a screening mammogram, another indicator of overspending.
- How frequently outpatient departments gave patients “double” computed tomography (CT) scans when a single scan may be all that is needed.
- How well outpatients are treated for suspected heart attacks.
- How well outpatient surgical patients are protected from infection.
CMS also announced updated data showing hospitals’ rates of death and readmission for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia patients.
AHCJ made an audio recording of the conference call. Follow this link to listen. A link to the CMS press release is on the agency’s website.
The slideshow below shows you how to access the new data:
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