health care

Hospital Errors Decline 5 Percent, But Sexual Assaults More Than Double

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The overall number of “adverse events” reported by Connecticut hospitals declined in 2016, but sexual assaults more than doubled, according to a new state report. The Department of Public Health (DPH) report shows that hospitals reported a total of 431 medical errors in 2016, down about 5 percent from 456 in 2015. But there were 24 reports of sexual abuse or assault on a patient or staff member within or on the grounds of a health care setting last year, up 140 percent from 10 cases in 2015, the report said. A majority—22 cases—happened at acute care hospitals. St.

I-Team In-Depth

Top Managers Of Pharma Co. Tied To Derby Nurse Charged With Racketeering

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Six top pharmaceutical executives and managers, formerly employed by Insys Therapeutics, Inc., were arrested Thursday on charges that they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners, including a nurse at a pain clinic in Derby. In a sweeping indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, federal prosecutors charged the former CEO and president of the Arizona-based company, Michael Babich, two former vice presidents, and three other managers with paying kickbacks to practitioners in several states, many of whom operated pain clinics, in order to get them to prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication. The medication, Subsys, is a powerful narcotic intended to treat cancer patients suffering intense episodes of breakthrough pain.  In exchange for kickbacks, the practitioners wrote large numbers of prescriptions for the patients, most of whom were not diagnosed with cancer, the indictment says. Prosecutors also allege that the former executives conspired to mislead and defraud health insurance providers, who were reluctant to approve payment for the drug when it was prescribed for non-cancer patients. One of the 10 practitioners referenced in the indictment is Heather Alfonso, formerly an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) at the Comprehensive Pain and Headache Treatment Center in Derby, who has pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from Insys, through a sham “speakers’ program,” in exchange for prescribing Subsys.

I-Team In-Depth

Derby Nurse Cooperating In Broadening Federal Probe

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A Derby nurse who admitted taking kickbacks from a drug company that makes the powerful opioid painkiller Subsys is cooperating with federal investigators, who recently charged two drug company employees with violating kickback laws, court documents show. Documents filed earlier this year show that Heather Alfonso, a nurse formerly employed by a Derby pain clinic, requested a delay in sentencing because she was “actively cooperating in an ongoing investigation in several jurisdictions, including Connecticut,” in which arrests were expected. “Ms. Alfonso’s cooperation with both state and federal investigations is significant when qualifying her character and conduct, relative to sentencing,” her attorney said in filings in U.S. District Court in Hartford. A judge agreed to delay Alfonso’s sentencing until Sept. 13.