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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- | ||
| Hasan Fallout - Army Deficient In Credentialing Physicians | ||
| 2011-12-24 | ||
| A federal watchdog took a bite out of military hospitals this month, warning it is impossible to tell if some doctors are licensed, properly trained and evaluated in their specialties. "Army oversight and physician credentialing and privileging requirements were not sufficient to assure that MTFs (Medical Treatment Facilities) fully complied with existing requirements or completely documented information needed to support credentialing and privileging decisions," said the new General Accountability Office report.
Congress called for the report in the aftermath of the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting in November 2009, for which an Army psychiatrist is charged with 13 murders. Congress and the military have examined how Maj. Nidal Hasan was trained, evaluated and promoted as a military physician. Nine military officials, including doctors, were disciplined for their actions or failures in the Hasan case. He faces a court-martial, with a possible death penalty, in March. The GAO report cast a wider net and urged the Defense Department to speed up its efforts to revise and standardize reviews of doctors' credentials.
"Based on our review of 150 credentials files at the five Army MTFs we selected for our review, we found that none of the five Army MTFs fully complied with certain Army physician credentialing and privileging requirements," the GAO report said. | ||
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #3 So the licensing and credentialing was never an issue. The receiving MTF(at least the for Navy) still has to privilege the provider (doctor, PA, nurse practitioner). That means checking credentials, licensing and security clearance of all providers, including those who went through USHS or med school on a military scholarship. What I'd like to see is the GAO address the causes as to why the Army is not credentialing or keeping on unfit health care providers. I can think of a few. But that won't happen. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2011-12-24 18:02 |
| #2 Typical bureaucratic inquiry. They are doing everything they can to ignore the 200 pound gorilla in the room. Whether he was competent or incompetent is not the issue. The issue is how did a jihadist manage to carry out such a deadly attack in a sensitive facility. All jihadists are Muslim but not all Muslims are jihadists. There has to be a system in place which can help identify them. Should the military investigate their own personnel? Probably not, too much internal politics. As Richard points out, someone like Gen Casey would probably kill the inquiry stone dead. Best to look for red flags then get the experts to "stress test" the case. A situation like the article posted yesterday provides an excellent case study. In spite of all the self-serving rationalisation being spouted by the jihadist, the facts were, as stated by Karen Loeffler, U.S. attorney in Alaska, "The suggestion that this was planted in his mind is just false. ... He researched the means to select targets, and his looking for people to kill and how to kill them was well before law enforcement got involved," |
| Posted by: tipper 2011-12-24 16:16 |
| #1 Wonder how many of these officers being investigated for disciplinary action will claim that being cashiered or disciplined for "islamophobia" hurts them, while making Hasan bulletproof. So to speak. And Hasan was part of the WH transition team, leaving the justifiable impression he had a rabbi. So to speak. I don't know if it would be possible to duck discipline by making the case that the Army actual system, as opposed to the one in the regs, made this inevitable and the officers in question were not in a position to do anything except hurt their careers. You could say that sacrificing a career in order to force improvements is the right thing to do. See Billy Mitchell. In this case, however, there would have been no, zero, nada, jacksquat, zilch possibility of improvement. Only of reinforcing the power of the "islamophobia" accusation. The docs' first witness should be Gen. Casey, whose first public statement was that he hoped this wouldn't hurt diversity. IOW, next time you see a Muslim with appalling professional performance and spouting jihad, he doesn't want to hear about it. Message received five-by, general, sir. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2011-12-24 14:11 |