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New York City hospital officials said Thursday that the problem of unread echocardiograms at Harlem Hospital Center was bigger than they had initially believed, and that a review of thousands of records had found six patients who might have been deprived of necessary medical treatment because the results of their heart tests were not read by doctors.
Scope of Unread Heart Tests in Harlem Hospital Widens
Seeded on Fri Jul 9, 2010 2:36 PM EDT
Article Source: The New York Times- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (6)
Doctors briefed on the city’s investigation have said that more than 200 patients with unread tests have died, but city hospital officials have declined to confirm or deny that number, saying it was premature to link any deaths to the unread tests. A doctor recruited to help read the 5,000 tests has estimated that half showed abnormalities, a percentage that city hospitals officials have declined to discuss.
Ms. Marengo, the hospitals’ spokeswoman, said that unless they needed immediate follow-up treatment, patients would be told they were among the 5,000 with unread tests only after the review had been completed.
When the review is done, she said, the hospitals corporation will send out “a letter of reassurance.”
- 1 vote
#1 - Fri Jul 9, 2010 2:37 PM EDT"read by technicians" and apparently unsupervised as to the quality of their work. I'm running out of words this makes me so angry that people were not treated medically as needed. They should add a new category on the death certificates...medical care malfunction
#2 - Fri Jul 9, 2010 4:19 PM EDTI couldn't believe that they hadn't read them. I'll bet they billed for them and for the reading of them.
The letter of reasssurance is a laugh. Why would anyone be reassured by a letter when they've opted not to notify the vast majority of the patients their EEC's were unread?
I wonder if this is a hospital that mostly treats the poor, thus thinks they don't need to care very much.
- 1 vote
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