Nothing to Confess by M. D Hricik

Author:M. D Hricik
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780998015
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2012-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

CDC Investigation

June 1, 2008

Genevieve Stager was busy hooking up her laptop to the LCD in the OOB’s conference room when the other meeting attendees arrived, each grabbing some morning coffee and muffins provided in the back of the room before getting down to business. The attendees included Bob Briggs, Drs. Mark Hubbard, Andrew Siegel, and Bob Avery from the OMC, Lance Turner and three other donor coordinators from the OOB. Hubbard also invited his boss, Dr. Henry Bolman. He was the Director of the Organ Transplantation Center at the OMC, and was ultimately responsible for all of the clinical activities involving organ transplant recipients at the institution. A conference call device was set up on the middle of the oval conference room table. Drs. Steven Fung from Cincinnati General, Mahboob Kumar from Pittsburgh State, and Millie Punch from Michigan University Hospital were expected to call in at 8 AM.

Conveniently, Bob Briggs was currently a member-at-large on UNOS’ Membership and Professional Standards Committee. This committee, composed of transplant physicians, surgeons, OPO executives and a handful of transplant patients from each region of the country, convened on at least a quarterly basis and was responsible for reviewing patient outcomes at transplant centers. In addition to routine reviews of patient and graft survival rates at every transplant center in the US, the MPSC was responsible for initial peer review of “adverse events”, including “sentinel events” such as the rare deaths of living donors, misconduct of personnel at transplant centers, and donor-transmitted diseases. The committee would initiate root cause analyses in an effort to determine if such adverse events could have been avoided and whether the adverse event was jeopar- dizing the safety of other patients transplanted at the involved centers. In cases of suspected misconduct, the MPSC ultimately made recommendations to the UNOS Executive Board regarding sanctions against programs or individuals.

The MPSC meetings usually took place at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare Airport. Briggs would return from those “Chicago” meetings with stories about allegations of misconduct, threats of sanctions, and resolutions. “It was like being in court!” he would tell his troops back at the OOB. “The transplant center was repre- sented by the hospital president and six lawyers!” His intention was to convince his employees that they were involved in a high- stakes business. However, in his two years on the MPSC, Briggs recalled only two sentinel events that resulted in probationary sanctions. He was hopeful that today’s meeting would dispel any concerns about wrongdoing on the part of his organization.

Dr. Stager, an erudite and lovely, gray-haired woman in her sixties, started the meeting once all of the outside callers had joined in on the conference call. She was very business-like, impeccably organized, and gracious. Mark Hubbard thought she had a remarkable resemblance to Katharine Hepburn.

“Let’s get started,” Gen announced. “For the local folks here in Columbus, I have a few slides depicting data generated by the CDC to date. For the outsiders, I can fax hard copies later. Feel free to interrupt at any time with comments or questions.

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