When the news BROKEN that White Rock Medical Center could not accept ambulances this spring was an indication that all was not as it should be at the East Dallas hospital. Former WRMC employees SUBMISSION a class-action lawsuit against their employer for failing to pay their insurance premiums was another clue. D CEO Healthcare began receiving calls and emails from current and former employees describing a lack of payment, financial mistakes, lack of electronic medical records and dangerous patient conditions. The media was not the only entity to hear about the conditions in the hospital.

The Department of Health and Human Services visited the hospital this summer and found several deficiencies that mirror what providers described to D CEO Healthcare about conditions at the hospital this summer. To corroborate the claims made by multiple providers and employees, D CEO Healthcare made a Freedom of Information Act request to the state’s HHS department to learn more about the investigation and the hospital visits. After weeks of back-and-forth, the state released some information about the investigation.

According to state documents, HHS visited the hospital on July 16 and found that the hospital did not meet the standard of care in several ways. The investigation found that the hospital failed to implement a system that showed improvements in identifying and reducing medical errors and measuring, analyzing and tracking adverse patient events. “The facility failed to ensure that the incident reporting system was employed to document all incidents with evaluation, follow-up and corrective action,” the documents say.

The state found that eleven patients had no documented incident reports despite experiencing a deviation from the intended intervention and care. While the lack of documentation reporting the hospital’s deviation from care was a problem, the deviation from the standard of care was also substantial, according to doctors who worked at the hospital.

HHS found that six out of six patients reviewed who needed potassium tests did not receive them in a timely manner. Potassium labs are part of the main panel of tests and can be used to monitor kidney disease, check for heart problems and high blood pressure, or check for side effects of cancer treatment or drugs. “High potassium levels can be deadly,” said a former WRMC doctor. “If any patient needed labs done and didn’t get them done, that’s a huge deal.”

The documents said WRMC staff reported that only one patient’s labs were ultimately not obtained that day. HHS found that a surgeon canceled a scheduled surgery when potassium labs could not be completed promptly. Results for the other patients were eventually completed, but staff did not complete an incident report due to the lack of a timely test result, as required by hospital policy.

HHS found that other tests failed to be completed in a timely manner. Earlier this year, former WRMC doctors reported lack of hospital troponin testing. At the time, doctors told CEO D that for two weeks in the hospital’s emergency department, all patients who came in with chest pain were asked to leave hospital care against medical advice to go to a hospital that was able to treat them properly. because the department did not have the supplies to perform a cardiac troponin test. The test helps determine whether a patient is currently having or has recently had a heart attack, which is essential for most treatments and medications.

If a woman tests for high troponin levels, she has a higher risk of preeclampsia, which is a serious pregnancy disorder involving high blood pressure and other symptoms that can threaten the health of the mother and the baby. Women with high troponin levels may want to avoid getting pregnant and risking preeclampsia, but the HHS investigation found that five out of five patients reviewed did not receive troponin test results promptly.

In addition, the state reviewed health records and interviewed patients and employees and found that WRMC failed to inform all seven patients interviewed of their rights, including how patients could report patient complaints, which is required by state law. . The documents say WRMC staff created new forms, including the patient complaint reporting mechanism, and updated the forms the next day.

The state Attorney General’s Office has not released any information about the investigation, who made the complaints, or any follow-up to the issues in the report.

WRMC management did not respond to requests for comment on the HHS investigation, but in a conversation earlier this year, CEO Dr. Mirza Baig and general counsel Terry Fokas discussed how Texas-based Heights Healthcare acquired the hospital troubled by the bankruptcy of Pipeline Health and made what he described as “key accomplishments,” including the implementation of an electronic health record, a strategic realignment of hospital departments and the completion of surveys by Texas Health and the Human Services Commission, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and The Joint Commission.