The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "hospital administration" ...
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Hospital at Risk
My investigation of the Minnesota Security Hospital, a state-run facility that provides psychiatric treatment to nearly 400 adults deemed "mentally ill and dangerous," uncovered high rates of violence and injuries of employees and patients at the facility, a critical shortage of psychiatrists, and widespread confusion among employees about what to do when a patient becomes violent. I found that much of confusion was the result of the abrasive, threatening management style of head administrator David Proffitt, who was hired in 2011 to reform the facility. I began investigating Proffitt and found he was hired without a basic background check. I uncovered many troubling details from Proffitt's past, including domestic violence, a PhD from a now-defunct online degree mill, a forced resignation from his previous job as the administrator of a private psychiatric hospital in Maine, and other failings. The state ordered Proffitt to resign and the Minnesota legislative auditor began an audit of the department's hiring practices. The assistant commissioner of the Department of Human Services who led the hiring search also resigned. The governor proposed $40 million in renovations to address safety concerns. Regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration visited the facility for the first time in 21 years. The facility also implemented new training for employees to reduce violence. My investigation of the facility continues.
Tags: Psychiatrists; domestic violence; injuries
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Fatal Flights
The nation's medevac programs are dominated by private companies with stiff competition and widespread safety failings. The high rate of accidents in the medical helicopter field is due to entrenched complacency. The Post uproots the severe lack of safety in a field the public typically views as heroic.
Tags: medevac; helicopter; hospitals; safety; Washington Post; patient; rescue; Federal Aviation Administration; National Transportation Safety Board; deaths; crash; medical; flight; crew;
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Hospital Corruption: "Salaries First, Patients Last"; "Hospital Secrets"
The series exposed Schneider Regional Medical Center's top executives' self-dealing and lavish pay, perks and the tragic result: The public hospital's cancer center was left so cash-strapped it could not pay for medicine and radiation equipment. The Daily News also revealed that more than $2.4 million in charity donations to the hospital's cancer center is missing, and the hospital cannot produce documentation to explain the numerous large withdrawals from bank accounts and entities that were specifically created to receive those donations. The investigation also found that two top hospital executives had criminal records, which were not disclosed when they were hired.
Tags: health care; hospital administration; corruption; embezzlement; chemotherapy and radiation; Virgin Islands
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Coronary: A True Story of Medicine Gone Awry
The book "investigated and documented the roles played by physicians, hospital administrators and corporate executives in a ten-year scheme to defraud Medicare and private insurers of tens of millions of dollars by performing unnecessary invasive tests and heart surgery" on patients.
Tags: medicine; hospitals; health care; health; Medicaid; surgery; fraud; Tenet Healthcare; federal investigation; Redding Medical Center;
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Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better than Yours
This book documents the generally poor quality of American Health Care, and uncovers one surprising exception: the Veterans Health Administration. Longman explores how the VA was pressured by doctors into reforming its practices and is now one of the most respected and effective health care agencies in the U.S.
Tags: health care; hospitals; federal government; veterans; doctors; medical records; Veterans Administration; VA;
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Dangerous Remedy
Robert Little of The (Baltimore) Sun reported that the U.S. Army has injected over 1000 soldiers wounded in Iraq with a medicine designed for hemophiliacs despite the fact that it is dangerous for people with normal blood. It can give them blood clots that could cause strokes and heart attacks. It costs $6000 per dose. Civilian doctors "have largely rejected it as a standard treatment for trauma patients." Army doctors say, in their experience, the drug saves lives by stopping hemorrhaging. Little says “Doctors in Iraq's emergency rooms, however, almost never care for their patients long enough to see firsthand whether blood clots or other complications have developed." Little reports that "the drug has never been subjected to a large-scale clinical trial to verify that it works and is safe for patients without hemophilia."
Tags: military medical system; Iraq; coagulant; Institute for Surgical Research; Germany; military hospitals; Food and Drug Administration; FDA; U.S. Department of Defense; DoD; Marines; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs; U.S. Army Surgeon General; HIPPA; actionable intelligence; Recombinant Activated Factor VII; Novo Nordisk; coagulopathic bleeding;
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The Wexford Files
To save money on its contract with the New Mexico state corrections department, Wexford Health Sources cut costs and provided poor health care to inmates. In the wake of Wexford's cost-cutting, "chronically sick inmates were routinely refused off-site specialty visits. Other inmates waited for days, even weeks, to receive critical prescription drug renewals. Still other inmates were forced to lie in their own feces because basic supplies, like bed sheets, were in such short order." In addition, staffing was a problem in prison medical units due to Wexford not filling vacant positions as yet another means of cost-cutting. In the end, people ranging from "Wexford's top medical officers in New Mexico to nurses and administrative employees" resigned as a result of the effect of the company's belt-tightening on their ability to help patients.
Tags: Prison hospitals; Wexford Health Souces; poor health care; New Mexico prison system
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Tarrant County Jail health care
Autrey examined medical care at Tarrant County jails, tracking each of the 10 deaths at the jail during 2004. She relates the extensive problems she found with medical care at the jail. Hospital administrators responsible for jail care overlooked the signs of crisis, spoke of political retribution for the sheriff when he complained and proclaimed the problems solved several times, although they were not.
Tags: Tarrant County; jail; prison; health care
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Dangerous Doses: How Counterfeiters are Contaminating America's Drug Supply
Eban writes about how medicine available from seemingly trustworthy sources like pharmacies and hospitals is sometimes not safe. The book shows how stolen, expired, mishandled or adulterated medicine cans still make their way into pharmacies and hospitals because they are passed through several other companies who buy and sell to one another. These companies sometimes have ties to drug traffickers and organized crime.
Tags: FDA; Food and Drug Administration; narcotics; hospitals; doctors; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceutical companies; drug dealers; Medicaid; Medicare; Mafia; business; prescription drugs; doctors; pharmacists; Operation Cold Stone
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As Good As New?
The recycling and re-use of medical devices labeled for one use only is called reprocessing, and is a controversial practice in the medical industry. Thousands of different devices are re-used by hospitals around the country, ranging from simple blood-pressure cuffs to highly-invasive catheters and biopsy tools. The practice saves hospitals millions of dollars, but consumers generally have no idea.
Tags: medical reprocessing; Food and Drug Administration; MAUDE data; recycling medical devices; re-using medical devices