When is the news? free White Rock Medical Center’s brief inability to accept ambulances this spring was a clue that all was not as it should be at the East Dallas hospital. Former WRMC employees filing A class-action lawsuit against their employers for failure to pay insurance premiums was another clue. D CEO Healthcare began receiving calls and emails from current and former employees regarding lack of payment, financial errors, lack of electronic medical records, and hazardous patient conditions. The media was not the only institution with information about conditions at the hospital.

The Department of Health and Human Services visited the hospital this summer and found many deficiencies that echoed what providers told D CEO Healthcare this summer about hospital conditions. D CEO Healthcare filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the state’s HHS department for more information about the investigation and hospital visits in order to verify the allegations made by multiple providers and employees. After weeks of back and forth, the state has released some information about the investigation.

HHS visited the hospital on July 16 and found that it did not meet the standard of care in several respects, according to government documents. The investigation found that the hospital failed to implement a system that would improve identifying and reducing medical errors and measuring, analyzing and tracking adverse patient events. “The facility failed to ensure that the incident reporting system was put in place to document all incidents with evaluation, follow-up, and corrective actions,” the documents state.

The State found that incident reports for eleven patients were not documented despite deviation from intended intervention and care. Although the lack of documentation reporting that the hospital had deviated from care was a problem, deviation from the standard of care was also significant, according to doctors working at the hospital.

HHS found that six of six patients analyzed who needed potassium tests did not get those tests on time. Potassium labs are part of a primary testing panel and may be used to monitor kidney disease, check for heart problems and high blood pressure, or check for side effects of cancer treatment or medications. “High potassium levels can be fatal,” a former WRMC doctor said. “If any patient needed labs done and didn’t get them done, that’s a huge deal.”

WRMC staff reported that only one patient’s labs were not available that day, the documents said. HHS found that a surgeon canceled a scheduled surgery after potassium labs could not be completed immediately. Results for other patients were eventually completed, but staff did not fill out an incident report because test results were not received in a timely manner, per hospital policy.

HHS found that other tests were not completed in a timely manner. Former WRMC doctors earlier this year reported Lack of troponin testing in the hospital. At the time, doctors told D CEO that all patients who presented to the hospital’s emergency department with chest pain for two weeks were asked to leave the hospital’s care against medical advice to go to a hospital that could treat them appropriately. Because there was no equipment to perform cardiac troponin testing in the department. The test helps determine whether the patient is currently having a heart attack or has recently had one; this is required for most treatments and medications.

If a woman has high troponin levels, she is at higher risk of preeclampsia, a serious pregnancy disorder that includes high blood pressure and other symptoms that can threaten the health of the mother and baby. Women with high troponin levels may want to avoid becoming pregnant and risking preeclampsia, but the HHS study found that five out of five patients analyzed did not receive troponin test results immediately.

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

The State Attorney’s Office did not provide further information about the investigation, who filed the complaints, or follow-up on the issues in the report.

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