A student who needs a surgical procedure will get files

"We talked to the patient's family and other outside organizations who could help her find every possible way to get her these records," said Patrick Ptak, spokesman for the governor.

Advocate in a court

The secretary and her parents drove an hour and a half Wednesday to their home in Florence, Arizona, where they went to court in a stalemate, hoping to talk to the judge.

The day before, the Secretary of State had written a heartbreaking letter to Judge Roger Brodman, a judge in the Superior Court of Maricopa County. Her doctor also wrote to the court, saying the secretary had "urgent need" for records.

Brodman considered competing proposals to resolve the situation:

• Ensure that patients potentially pay thousands of dollars for their records.
• Send the bill to former hospital leaders.
• Force the electronic disk company to bear the costs.
• Dig in the hospital assets that would otherwise go to the main creditor, a New York investment company, who opposed the plan.

"Everyone is in agreement that it is a critical issue," Brodman said. "The hospital has a duty to produce the archives, the basic problem is that there is no hospital, the hospital has gone to Kaput."

The secretary did not have the opportunity to speak during the legal proceedings. But it turned out that the judge did not need Secrist's encouragement.

Brodman quickly decided that the most effective, fastest and probably least expensive option was to use the remaining hospital assets.

This plan will reactivate the electronic archiving system for 90 days, launch an advertising blitz to alert patients and engage employees to collect records and respond to requests.

Indigo-DLI Holdings, the New York lender who opposed the project because it would spend money recovered from hospitals, could appeal to stop it, lawyer Kyle Hirsch told the court.

He was the only trial lawyer not to have expressed sympathy for the patients.

"It's a very important issue," Hirsch told the judge. "If patients want their records, they have to pay a reasonable fee … But imposing all the expenses on Indigo does not seem right."

For the moment, the plan will go forward.

Next steps for patients

If all goes well, Secrist can expect to receive his file in two or three weeks, the lawyers said.

She could get the records even faster if the Ducey office could locate her files through a third party provider of recordings with which the state has relationships.

All patients who need the Florence and Gilbert hospital records – and have not already requested them – should do so as soon as possible.

The window of opportunity to receive registrations should be approximately from March to May.

TO CLOSE

Caitlin Secrist is constantly suffering from a serious illness, pancreatitis. And now, she could die because she can not get copies of her medical record.
Arizona Republic

& # 39; C & # 39; is a good feeling & # 39;

The secretary and her parents said the decision was a "big win" for her and hundreds of other patients.

"It's a good feeling," said Secrist in front of the courthouse. "I can finally get those records and keep improving them."

As a budding nurse, Secrist hopes to be able to undergo his surgery quickly so he can return to school and return to a more normal life.

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Suzette Secrist, her mother, said that she was grateful to the judge.

"He understood that it was all human," she said.

The Republic's investigation probably helped to motivate the parties to find a solution, said Suzette Secrist.

"The first thing lawyers asked us this morning was," Have you read the story? "She said," We appreciate all the help we got. It was much more than I expected. "

Solutions with larger problem

The case of Secrist raises the broader question of why Arizona patients were put at risk.

Disputes between healthcare institutions and software and server companies over billing, access, and patient obligations have arisen as medical records across the country have come online. There are not always clear answers in the federal and state laws in effect.

For example, Medhost's lawyers, the electronic registration company used by hospitals in Florence and Gilbert, argued that it was not a "health care provider". "health" and that it was therefore not subject to the rules of record keeping applicable to hospitals and doctors.

And the Arizona Department of Health Services refused to intervene in this case despite the demands of the lawyers. This is not clear why.

The governor's office hopes to review state laws for possible loopholes that have contributed to the quagmire, Ptak said.

"We are open to discussions on how to prevent such events from happening again in the future if a hospital closes," he said.