Lazy provider faked blood-pressure readings

#Middlebury #VeteransPost

A potentially life-threatening practice was going on at one of the Department of Veteran Affairs medical facilities until the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) caught them at it. A primary-care provider had been falsifying blood-pressure readings to cut down on the workload.

This is a big deal. High blood pressure can lead to all kinds of ugly outcomes such as stroke, kidney disease, heart failure and heart attack.

Specifically, the OIG responded to a report that the primary-care provider was entering fake blood-pressure readings into the patients’ records, indicating normal readings. When the OIG investigated, the care provider had put 128/78 into the record for 83 percent of the patients. The OIG reached out to 10 patients with that reading and was told that their blood pressure hadn’t been taken at all.

At that point the OIG looked at 5,000 of the provider’s patient records. Of those, 1,370 had conditions that required blood pressure to be tracked and controlled, and 1,364 of those had the same reading (128/78) entered into their record. In that group, 64 patients were ill with hypertension, which could have led to death. Additionally, lab work wasn’t always done when prescription changes were ordered. The patients were scheduled for follow-up in nine months, no matter how serious their conditions.

Why on earth would a care provider falsify information like this? The OIG reported that the normal 128/78 reading was entered to turn off the clinical reminder – an automatic note to the physician about whether lab work, referrals or medication changes are needed – which served to reduce workload because a normal blood pressure would not require any other intervention or documentation.

Worse, the care provider may have received a performance bonus based on all the “improved” patient blood-pressure readings.

© 2018 King Features Synd. Inc.