Thursday, May 19, 2005

Jacobi's Missing Test Results

Another problem in New York. The Times reports how Jacobi Hospital, part of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, failed to notify hundreds of women of their Pap test results, including some with abnormal results.
Apparently, supposedly to reduce bureaucracy, a single clerk was given the job of scheduling all Pap tests, and notifying all patients of their results. Apparently no one was monitoring the clerks work, so it took a long time for anyone to notice that the notifications of 307 women with abnormal results never got out.
Hospital management seems at a loss to explain why all this happened.
The hospital's executive director (a quaint term in this day and age) has been suspended.
What was left unsaid is whether any physicians were notified of their patient's abnormal results.

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