State Disclosure Reports
- Missouri health care associated infection reporting
Consumers Union Documents
- State Hospital Infection Public Reporting Laws
Summary of state laws hospital infection reporting laws.
Consumers Union News Releases
- MISSOURI: General Assembly passes hospital infection reporting bill
SB1279 was passed on May 5 and is now waiting for Governor Bob Holden’s signature. The bill requires the Department of Health and Senior Services to collect and publicly report the infection rates of individual hospitals. Primary sponsors Sen. Sarah Steelman and Rep. Rob Schaaf, M.D., worked with a host of co-sponsors and stakeholders including family members of people affected by hospital-acquired infections, the Missouri Hospital Association, and Consumers Union.
News Articles
- Six St. Louis area hospitals face Medicare crackdown on patient injuries
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Sunday June 22, 2014)
Six St. Louis area hospitals may face penalties beginning this fall based on Medicare’s assessment of infection rates and other hospital-acquired injuries. Local hospitals react to Medicare’s penalty program for avoidable patient harm.
- Missouri Senate Committee Passes Bill to Toughen Reporting on Hospital Infections
Source: St. Louis CBS (Wednesday April 17, 2013)
In part, the bill would require a quicker turn-around by Department of Health releasing infection data reported by hospitals.
- Editorial: Tracking medical errors remains stubbornly inconsistent
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Wednesday January 11, 2012)
Medical errors need to be tracked and reported to the public. Right now, Missouri consumers have no way of accessing medical harm information about their local hospital because there is no mandatory public reporting law in the state of Missouri.
- ‘Never events’ at hospitals go unnoticed
Source: News-Leader (Saturday October 29, 2011)
Hospital patients and their relatives in Missouri and most of the United States have no way of learning about most adverse events. Most adverse events aren’t publicly reported.
- Missouri patients can now find out more about their doctors
Source: St. Louis Post Dispatch (Friday September 9, 2011)
A new law will give Missouri residents more information about their doctor, including disciplianary actions and license revocations in other states.
- Doctors with histories of alleged malpractice often go undisciplined
Source: The Kansas City Star (Saturday September 3, 2011)
The Star found about 200 doctors who have practiced in Kansas or Missouri since 1990 and have had five or more malpractice case payments made on their behalf, without ever being disciplined by the state’s board. And although the two states’ boards have access to malpractice claims information from several sources, they don’t make it available to the public — unlike the boards in many other states.
- Nixon signs law to help Missouri discipline dangerous doctors
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Wednesday July 13, 2011)
A new state law will allow patients to learn more about their doctors’ backgrounds and give the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts increased power to discipline incompetent physicians. Consumers Union worked with the media and did an online action in support of the bill, asking MO activists to send letters of support.
- Legislature sends doctor discipline bill to governor
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Saturday May 14, 2011)
On Friday, the Missouri Legislature sent Gov. Jay Nixon a bill that would give the board more power to suspend incompetent and impaired doctors and provide patients with more information about their doctors. The reforms were inspired by a Post-Dispatch investigation last year that found the state’s policing of doctors to be among the nation’s most lax and least transparent.
- Patient’s family seeks answers
Source: St. Louis Post Dispatch (Thursday May 5, 2011)
Ambiguous records at St. John’s and inability to get information frustrate wife and daughter of man, now deceased.
- Bill to reform doctor discipline faces uncertain chances
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Saturday April 9, 2011)
Proposals to reform Missouri’s lax system on disciplining of doctors have advanced out of committee, and bills are ready for debate before the full House and Senate, but the future of any legislation remains clouded.
Research and Reports
- Program leads to changes in culture to protect patients from medical errors
Source: St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition (Friday June 7, 2013)
This issue brief discusses how a program developed by a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital is being used by hospitals across the country, including in our region, to prevent medical errors.
- Missouri: Focus on Nonpayment for Adverse EventsLearn about Missouri’s efforts to alter its payment system for preventable hospital acquired conditions and events that harm patients.