Eastside Hospital in Trouble

East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital is in danger of losing its medical accreditation because of lapses in its laboratory, prompting worries that the Eastside’s strained healthcare system could face another blow.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a national hospital accreditation agency, found that the hospital’s lab failed to meet 14 standards, including following basic protocols for handling blood, training workers and maintaining equipment.

The rebuke is considered rare. The accrediting agency’s spokesman, Mark Forsneger, said that less than 1% of the more than 2,100 labs the agency reviewed did so poorly that it threatened to pull its seal of approval.

The hospital disputed the agency’s findings and vowed to prove that the lab was operating properly and that no patients were in jeopardy. But losing accreditation would be a major blow because many private insurance companies require the seal for inclusion in their plans.

The move comes four months after another East Los Angeles hospital, Elastar Community Hospital, shuttered its doors because of financial problems. Since the closure, officials at Doctors Hospital said they have seen a 15% jump in the number of patients.

Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who remembered going to Doctors Hospital several times as a youngster in the 1960s, said that the community relies on the hospital and that the area can’t afford to lose it.

“They closed down [Elastar] ... and we’re losing the safety net of hospitals we have on the Eastside, in an area that has one of the highest concentrations of uninsured patients,” he said.

The accrediting agency has threatened to pull the accreditation of 11 other hospitals nationwide this year. The only other local hospital on that list is Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

“Accreditation means a hospital does the right things and does them well,” Forsneger said.

But, he added, “accreditation is just one thing for patients in the public to look at when selecting a hospital. They should talk to their doctors -- what is their doctor’s experience with this organization, what does their doctor recommend.”

If the accreditors were worried that the hospital was putting patients at the most severe level of risk, the president of the agency could have issued an immediate threat to pull accreditation.

No such action was necessary for Doctors Hospital, Forsneger said. The agency spent months reviewing the inspection from early August before issuing its opinion in December.

Doctors Hospital, like Memorial Hospital of Gardena, is owned by Houston-based HealthPlus Corp.

Steve Popkin, who oversees the two hospitals, said he was confident that his company could prove to accreditors that the lab was working properly. Still, he said, he was concerned about the findings because losing private insurers could cripple the hospital.

“With the hospital business operating on such small margins as it is right now and as many hospitals are actually losing money, any disruption of financial cash flow could be very detrimental to the hospital,” he said.

The hospital, a cluster of camel-colored buildings next to small medical clinics and shops on a busy stretch of Whittier Boulevard, will remain accredited throughout the appeal process.

“We haven’t done any harm to any patient,” said Araceli Lonergan, the chief executive officer at Doctors Hospital. “This has to do with paperwork.

“We’re just continuing to do what we have to do, but we have to show that it was done,” she said.

Hospital officials declined to comment on most of the specific deficiencies, but did say that the agency may have been dissatisfied with the lab’s leadership because its longtime director took a short leave of absence and another person took her place. That person had a different style, they said.

Lonergan said her hospital’s problems did not compare to King/Drew, a larger, publicly run hospital in Willowbrook where medical lapses have been tied to the deaths of several patients.

“We’re not a Drew,” she said. “This is a lab thing.”

Cathy Chidester, assistant director of the county’s emergency services organization, said she was not yet concerned about the fate of Doctors Hospital.

She said she was “confident” that the hospital would win its appeal or make the changes necessary to keep its accreditation. There will be no immediate impact on emergency services because her organization does not rely on the agency’s accreditation to decide whether the county allows ambulances to take 911 calls to Doctors Hospital.

“As long as the state OKs their license, then we’re OK,” Chidester said.

But one nearby emergency room director said he was skeptical that the area could endure the loss of another hospital.

“I think we are already absorbing 900 cases a month that used to go to Elastar,” said Brian Johnston, the director of the emergency room at White Memorial Medical Center in Boyle Heights. “I don’t know about East L.A. Doctors, but every little bit stresses the system a little more. I don’t know when we say ‘uncle.’ ”

“We are already overburdened,” he said.

“Patients are waiting too long and the whole system is financially stressed because of the large number of uninsured patients and [the state’s threatened cuts in] Medi-Cal.”

Ana Vasquez, who went to the Doctors Hospital emergency room about a year ago because of gallstones, said she was surprised to hear about the alleged lab lapses. The 17-year old was walking in front of the hospital Wednesday with her brothers and her son.

“The time I came, everything was good,” she said.

Esther Lopez, 47, was also surprised. She hoped that the accrediting agency would do a thorough double-check before pulling its seal of approval.

Lopez, who lives in Los Angeles, said she relied on the hospital six years ago for a stomach problem and eight years ago for pneumonia.

She shook her head. “I don’t think they should pull it because we need it.”