New York City-based NYU Langone Health had VIP status listed in patient EHRs, The New York Times reported Dec. 22.
The EHRs noted whether the patients donated to the hospital or had ties to executives, according to screenshots sent to the newspaper by physicians frustrated with the practice of giving preferential treatment to certain people.
Fritz François, MD, chief of hospital operations, told the news outlet that EHRs sometimes listed patients as "friends of family" of employees, but that extended to everyone, including security guards and housekeepers, allowing them to pay courtesy visits to their loved ones.
"Our friends and family do not receive different or better medical care," Dr. François wrote to The Times. "Our friends and family don't skip the triage process, don't jump any lines, don't get placed in any special rooms or floors and don't get fed any differently."
But physicians who talked to the newspaper disagreed. Eleven of them said they resigned from the hospital's emergency department over the favoring of VIPs.