Grassley questions HRSA public database shutdown decision

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked Mary K. Wakefield, PhD, RN, administrator of the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA) to schedule an in-depth briefing on the issues surrounding the decision to shut down public access to the National Practitioner Data Bank’s (NPDB’s) Public Use File (PUF).

In a letter dated Oct. 7, Grassley wrote that the NPDB PUF serves as the backbone for providing transparency for “bad acting healthcare practitioners.”

However, when a Kansas City Star reporter demonstrated the ability to identify a physician’s databank record by comparing de-identified information with state court records, HRSA wrote the reporter Aug. 26, “threatening monetary penalities for ‘republication of information obtained from the NPDB.’”

“It seems disturbing and bizarre that HRSA would attempt to chill a reporter’s First Amendment activity with threats of fines for merely ‘republishing’ public information from one source and connecting it with public information from another,” Grassley wrote. “A journalist’s shoe-leather reporting is no justification for such threats or for HRSA to shut down public access to information that Congress intended to be public.”

According to Grassley, shutting down public access to the databank undermines the mission of identifying inefficiencies within the U.S. healthcare system.

The senator asked HRSA to clarify its decision to remove the database and its plan for moving forward by asking questions including:

• Who at HRSA made the decision to remove public access to the PUF?
• What steps is HRSA taking to further de-identify information within the PUF?
• How will you ensure that the further de-identified information is in keeping with both the letter of the law and congressional intent to keep the data public?

Grassley asked for a written response to the questions he posed by Oct. 21.