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Santa Clara County has fined private health systems more than $ 40,000 for failing to comply with its coronavirus testing order.
The HCA Healthcare Regional Medical Center in San Jose has been fined $ 22,750 for failing to properly inform patients of their right to a COVID-19 test.
A law enforcement officer inspected the center on October 20, noting that the hospital had not “conspicuously” posted COVID-19 test notices in 13 different rooms, according to the violation notice.
The hospital did not correct the violation within the county’s 48-hour grace period and the county fined it on October 27.
In addition, HCA’s Good Samaritan Hospital was fined $ 8,500 – $ 3,500 for inadequate patient notification and $ 5,000 for failing to test a patient who met the criteria.
County officials say a registered nurse used the county’s complaints portal, alleging that Good Samaritan Hospital refused her a diagnostic test on October 10.
The nurse, who was showing symptoms, sought care in the hospital emergency room and also reported to hospital staff that she had been exposed to a COVID-19 patient at her workplace. The nurse was finally able to get a test in the county at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.
“We are happy to report that the issue has been resolved and signs are now posted in all required areas,” said Sarah Sherwood, spokesperson for HCA Healthcare, on November 27.
County legal counsel James Williams announced in September that the county would be fining private health systems for failing to provide adequate access to COVID-19 testing.
“Private providers are still significantly behind the county in the COVID-19 tests they provide to patients,” county officials said. “Private health systems are required under the revised examination order to educate patients about their rights to be tested for COVID-19.”
Depending on the county, private hospitals can accomplish this through their website, promotional material, and notices posted in physical locations.
“Once patients know their rights and providers routinely offer testing to all categories of patients covered by the revised testing order, we expect to see a substantial increase in testing per provider,” officials said. County.
Four other violations of the county’s test order were corrected within the grace period and therefore did not result in fines, the county said.
County public health officials have sharply criticized private hospitals for not performing enough COVID-19 tests. In September, former deputy county manager David Campos blamed hospitals for the county not going down to a lower level to reopen businesses.
“The county is doing its part, we are testing more than our fair share,” Campos said at the time. “If these private health hospitals were actually tested to the level that we wanted them to test, we would probably be in the orange level (level) today.”
Two other hospitals were fined for giving patients insufficient notice. The county fined these centers for similar reasons – there were not enough signs posted at facilities to inform patients of their right to a COVID-19 test.
The county fined the Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and San Jose centers of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation $ 8,250 for inadequate patient notification. The county also fined Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Jose $ 3,750.
The Palo Alto Medical Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
Irene Chavez, director of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Jose, said the company responded by placing signs in the centre’s emergency room ambulance bays.
According to Chavez, Kaiser’s offices in Northern California have collectively doubled their daily testing capacity to more than 12,000 tests per day after recently purchasing new laboratory equipment and facilities.
Hospitals in Santa Clara County have performed a much higher number of COVID-19 tests than those in private health systems, according to a report that the county’s public health department presented to the oversight board on November 10.
Between November 2 and November 8, the county performed 18,402 tests, while Kaiser Permanente of Northern California performed 9,370 tests. Stanford Health Care Hospital performed 5,416 tests, Sutter Health and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation performed 1,928 tests, and El Camino Health performed 1,245 tests.
Dr Christina Kong, medical director of pathology at Stanford Medicine, said the health care provider had not received any message from the county indicating that he needed to increase his COVID-19 tests.
Kong said Stanford Health is currently awaiting FDA approval to deliver home self-collection kits that will be tested in their clinical virology lab.
Dr Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said widespread testing is essential to educate public health officials on how the virus is spread so they can give advice on the best practices and issue adequate health orders. People who test positive for the virus may also be isolated to prevent them from spreading the disease to others.
“We use the tests in different ways,” said Benjamin. “If we do random testing, and we see a lot of people in the community who have a particular disease, we can advise those people to get tested and to avoid risky activities.”
Contact Sonya Herrera at [email protected] or follow @SMHsoftware on Twitter.
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