USA: This isn’t Star Wars, but if feels like patients and advocates are stuck in some sort of good vs. evil, Dark Side vs. Light Side battle with Sith lords. FYI to the Star Wars Geeks in the readership: Okay I loved the first three movies, and I didn’t even mind the fourth, but I’m not a hard core Star Wars universe aficionado nor am I well-versed in all the lingo, so I might mess up on the references. You get the point.
There is a disturbance in the Force. The National Doctor Database has gone dark. Poof. Someone under the command of the Galactic Empire quietly flipped the switch on this national tool for the public reporting of doctor malpractice and disciplinary actions on September 1st. Here’s the official lame ass excuse, from the lips – or keyboard – of spokesperson Martin Kramer:
“The Public Use File (PUF) is not available at this time because the Division of Practitioner Data Banks is reviewing its procedures for disclosing information in a form that does not permit the identification of any particular health care entity, physician, other healthcare practitioner, or patient. The PUF may be available after a thorough analysis of the data fields to ensure the protection of confidential information is completed. The data in the PUF will also be examined in conjunction with other publicly available data sets to reduce disclosure risks.”As usual, the Light Side put up this meager protest: “We are troubled that HRSA has taken down a data resource that has been available for years to the general public, the media and researchers,” said Charles Ornstein, senior reporter with ProPublica in New York.
Could we stop being so damned polite?
The public has a right to know who is harming them and what their true risks are. That’s not just true of physicians. It’s true of hospitals, too. Especially hospitals. They’re set up across this country like so many Death Stars – and, if you’re attempting to get information about performance and patient safety, they’re about as impenetrable, too.
Yes, I’m feeling a little terse this morning.
Jedi knights Jeremy Kohler and Blythe Bernhard wrote this story for the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Read it here. Then don’t just go “oh well” and walk away. Do something. Write an email. Send it to this address:
Star Wars Image Copyright LucasFilm LTD.
HealthCare PSI Blog 
Heidi Stevenson
September 13, 2011
Thank you for such a well-done commentary on a disastrous state of affairs. The idea that a doctor’s privacy – or a hospital’s – extends to the quality of work done is an obscenity, and idea that could only be dreamed up by the dark side.
And, I agree with your sentiment: “Could we stop being so damned polite?” We’ve become so beaten down that standing up and saying what something is – what something really is – is termed rudeness. It’s time to get beyond that. Those who presume to speak for us too easily hide behind mealy words.
Gil Mileikowsky MD
September 14, 2011
Appearances can be deceiving,… It may actually be the Jedis, i.e. “Light Side”, that won here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi, see:
GAO and OIG reports re: Circulation of FALSE information regarding Physicians by the National Practitioners Data Bank, NPDB, http://allianceforpatientsafety.org/npdb-excerpts.php
Gil Mileikowsky MD
– President and Founder,
– Alliance For Patient Safety, AFPS, http://allianceforpatientsafety.org/
– http://allianceforpatientsafety.org/socalphysgm.pdf
– http://allianceforpatientsafety.org/blackbox.pdf
DK
September 14, 2011
DK here. Following these two comments, a great conversation ensued over on the Mothers Against Medical Errors Facebook group. Conclusions:
1: NO physicians have been harmed in any way by publishing this database.
2: If there are errors, fix them.
3: Embarrassment is no reason to keep the public in the dark.
4: It is a sad commentary on our healthcare system that, instead of improving the quality of care, those at the highest levels of oversite find it easier to hide it from the public.
Heidi Stevenson
September 14, 2011
Nice summary, DK.