CA Supreme Court upholds "whistleblower" protection for Modesto physician - and on replacing the abuser-favoring connotations of "whistleblower" with "Corporate Integrity Advocate"

"Whistleblower" is a term commonly used to refer to insiders in an organization who do not "go along to get along" or look the other way with regard to corruption and malfeasance.

The connotation, of course, is that these individuals are "snitches" and "non-team players", in other words, the "bad guys."  They are then punished for their good deeds.

(More on the term "whistleblower" below.)

Here's one "whistleblower" who punished back:

California Supreme Court upholds whistleblower protection for Modesto physician

By Ken Carlson
February 20, 2014
http://www.modbee.com/2014/02/20/3201156/california-supreme-court-upholds.html

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Modesto physician who challenged the termination of his hospital privileges has whistleblower protections.

Dr. Mark Fahlen, a kidney specialist, filed a March 2011 whistleblower lawsuit in Stanislaus County Superior Court after Sacramento-based Sutter Health canceled his privileges to care for patients at Memorial Medical Center.

Fahlen’s lawsuit claims that Sutter Central Valley Hospitals and Steve Mitchell, then the chief operating officer of Memorial, persuaded the Sutter Gould medical group to fire him and terminated his hospital privileges because of his complaints about insubordination and substandard care by hospital nurses.

At least they didn't threaten to plaster his complaints to his forehead as occurred in Ohio (http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2013/07/hows-this-for-patient-rights-affinity.html).

His attorney said the court decision guarantees that physicians have the same protections as hospital employees if they report problems that threaten to harm patients.

That "guarantees protections" and "report problems that threaten to harm patients" have to appear in the same sentence at all is symptomatic of the most severe form of patient-be-damned dysfunction in this industry.

It’s “the biggest victory for patient rights since California’s health care whistleblower law was adopted in 1999,” said attorney Stephen Schear of Oakland. “In a hospital environment dominated by corporate giants too often more focused on protecting their marketing and brand name than patient health, today’s ruling will finally unshackle doctors from fear of retribution so they can protect patients.”

Ditto my prior comment.

In a case closely watched by the hospital industry, the American Medical Association supported Fahlen with a “friend of the court” brief. The California Hospital Association and groups such as Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Scripps Health and Dignity Health filed briefs on behalf of the defendants.

That is rather indicative of the mindsets of those who filed briefs on behalf of the defendants.

... After he was given staff privileges at Memorial in 2004, Fahlen complained to administrators that nurses refused or failed to follow his patient care instructions. According to facts in the case, Fahlen had six clashes with nurses about patient care from August 2007 to April 2008. He told supervisors and administrators that nurses were insubordinate and that their care was substandard.

One complaint was regarding a nurse’s refusal to transfer a patient to intensive care, delaying for five hours the appropriate level of care for the patient, the doctor said.

What if the patient had died, I ask?

Mitchell, the chief operating officer, blamed Fahlen for his conflicts with nursing staff and contacted Sutter Gould’s medical director about Fahlen’s conduct. Sutter Gould cut ties with Fahlen in May 2008, causing his malpractice insurance to be canceled. Fahlen decided to start his own practice and arranged a meeting with Mitchell to talk about his hospital privileges.

Mitchell wrote in an email to Memorial’s chief executive officer that Fahlen “does not get it,” meaning that he was going to lose his privileges. The CEO replied that it “looks like we need to have the medical staff take some action on his MedQuals!!! (or medical qualifications). Soon!”

According to the lawsuit, Mitchell told Fahlen at the meeting that he should resign and leave town, or the hospital would report him to the Medical Board of California. Fahlen charged that a subsequent in-house investigation, and an executive committee decision not to renew his privileges, occurred in retaliation for his complaints about patient care.

In other words, the doctor was a "disruptive physician" - a bad schoolboy who needed to be spanked - which was, of course, more important to the executives than maimed or dead patients.

Fahlen asked for a hearing, resulting in an October 2009 to May 2010 review by a six-physician committee at Memorial. The panel concluded that the evidence did not show he was incompetent or that his behavior had endangered patients. [But] Memorial’s board of trustees overruled the panel in early 2011.  [It's not hard to imagine that few if any on that board were themselves medical professionals - ed.]

It's more likely in my view that this physician was ultra-competent.

Sutter attorneys argued that the doctor first needed to exhaust other legal remedies before bringing the whistleblower lawsuit. The Supreme Court dismissed a previous expectation that doctors exhaust other remedies before filing suit with claims of retaliation. Such conditions would “seriously undermine the Legislature’s purpose to afford a whistleblower on a hospital medical staff the right to sue,” the Supreme Court’s opinion said.

Next, a typical circular argument:

Attorney Lowell Brown, who handles physician disciplinary cases for hospitals, said Thursday’s ruling will “change the rules of the game,” though additional court decisions will be needed to clarify issues. He predicted doctors will be reluctant to serve on hospital panels that review the competency or behavior of physicians.

“The doctor can claim the action is being taken because he or she is whistleblowing,” Brown said. “No one ever produces evidence that a sham peer review has taken place. What we will see is sham whistleblower complaints about peer reviews.”

Since sham peer review (see more at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/10/sham-peer-review-could-this-bad-faith.html) is done secretly and behind closed doors, with protections, it's pretty hard to produce "evidence" of the type required in court.

... Fahlen said the ruling means that “doctors no longer have to choose between speaking out for their patients or continuing with their careers.”

Again, this is an absolutely perverse choice foisted upon clinicians by corporatized, financialized medicine and its leadership.

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More on the term "whistleblower" itself.

My attitude about that term is clear - the people who use it are attempting an ad hominem attack in one word.  It is a bad term, with bad connotations, and does not actually describe what the individual is attempting to accomplish.

AHIMA's  Kim Baldwin Stried-Reich has a similar view, and a suggestion for replacement of that term with a more descriptive and non-abusable term:

"Changing Perception of ‘Whistleblowers’"

From  http://journal.ahima.org/2014/03/01/hipaa-whistleblower-protections-promote-information-governance/

... According to Kim Baldwin Stried-Reich, the former Speaker of the AHIMA House of Delegates, the new amendment to the HITECH-HIPAA Omnibus rule demonstrates both the increasing importance and value HIM professionals have today in ensuring both integrity and compliance with rules, regulations, and laws governing access and disclosure of health information within their organizations. Baldwin Stried-Reich is a privacy and compliance officer with the Lake County Physicians Association, in Waukegan, IL.

She notes that while the new provision provides specific protections against disclosures reported to an oversight agency by whistleblowers and workforce members who are victims of a crime, she’s not so sure this new rule will encourage individuals, such as HIM professionals to speak-up and speak-out when or if they see evidence of systematic and ongoing non-compliance with federal mandates.

One reason for this is the widespread use of the word “whistleblower,” which often carries negative connotations. She prefers the term “corporate integrity advocate.”

"Corporate Integrity Advocate" clearly and unequivocally describes what the individuals - including those who write for blogs such as this one - are trying to accomplish.

It is also a term that is rather hard for malfeasance-doers to use as ad hominem..

“Perhaps if Health and Human Services had utilized another term, such as ‘corporate integrity advocate’ more individuals would understand what the intent of this new law is and that it is meant as an avenue individuals can choose to pursue if their professional integrity and ethics are not in alignment with the corporation’s any longer,” Baldwin Stried-Reich says.

"Not in alignment with the lack of the corporation's integrity and ethics" is a more direct, and likely more accurate, way to put it.

A relevant example of this is evident in the settlement that Shasta Regional Medical Center (SRMC) entered into with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) following an investigation concerning the breach of PHI after senior-level executives intentionally disclosed protected information to the media on at least three separate occasions.

The Shasta case demonstrates how and why corporate integrity advocates or whistleblowers are needed to facilitate change within their organizations when it is warranted, Baldwin Stried-Reich explains.

That example is but the tip of the iceberg.  There are many posts on this blog alone dealing with the issues of whistleblowers Corporate Integrity Advocates (see the query link http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/whistle-blowers).

The term "whistleblower" needs to be retired ASAP.

-- SS