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Friday deadline, a plan they report “involves hiring new nurses; rewriting some policies; retraining staff; retiring outdated medicines, supplies and equipment; and launching an intensive series of daily or weekly performance audits over at least the next five months.”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.
KQED takes stock of food safety measures
California public radio station KQED explored food inspection and safety at all levels of the process, from producer to consumer, in a package rich with audio and multimedia.
Specific topics addressed in the package include:
- Federal plans to reform the food safety system
- The safety of leafy greens, and the impact of possible federal regulations upon that sector of the agriculture industry
- A snapshot of the work of a health inspector in the California Bay Area
- A primer on consumer health safety and a separate segment addressing the rarely discussed dangers of growing your own food
- Food-safety issues related to both recreational and commercial fishing
AHCJ resources
Tip Sheets
- Lifting the shroud: Using multiple-cause-of-death data
- Melamine: A primer on the contamination of food
Article
CMS reverses decision on access to Idaho inspection reports
Filed under: Health data, Hospitals, Public records
An apparent “misinterpretation” of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services led to the federal agency warning Idaho to stop posting reports of inspections of nursing homes and hospitals last month.
The warning, according to a May 25 Associated Press story, directed the state to only release the reports after a written request under the Freedom of Information Act was filed.
But an article published May 27 in The Times-News quotes a CMS spokesperson who says the agency checked with its general counsel and “determined that Idaho and any other state can post the reports 14 days after they’re generated.”
State officials had appealed the decision and have said they will resume posting the documents as soon as they received official word of the CMS reversal.
The reports don’t appear to be currently available on the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Web site but the agency is launching a redesigned site this weekend, so perhaps they’ll be available next week.
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