All Children’s hospital will make “big changes” after heart unit scandal

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., is making big changes in the fallout of investigations from the Tampa Bay Times that its pediatric heart surgery unit had an unusually high mortality rate. The publication also uncovered other serious problems with the hospital’s procedures that led to a CMS investigation.

Since then, several hospital executives resigned, and the facility has had to meet new patient safety and quality metrics and work with CMS to continue being a qualified provider.

In addition, the hospital is undertaking other “sweeping” changes, the TBT reported at the end of June. The changes include new evaluations for top executives, including checks and balances on the hospital’s president, better tracking of internal complaints, thorough vetting of doctors, and other safety and quality metrics, according to the TBT.

The changes are partly prompted from an investigation from law firm Gibson Dunn, which Johns Hopkins Medicine hired to investigate the hospital. The firm filed a report, and Johns Hopkins has released a 12-page memo with recommendations to improve.

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