North Carolina health officials will investigate UNC Children's Hospital after a report highlighted cardiologists' concerns about the hospital's pediatric heart surgery program in 2016 and 2017, reports The New York Times.
A team from the state's division of health service regulation will partner with federal regulators to investigate the program, North Carolina Secretary of Health Mandy Cohen, MD, said May 31.
The call for an investigation came one day after NYT published a 7,000-word investigative report, which found cardiologists at the hospital expressed serious concerns about the safety and quality of the heart surgery program in 2016. The physicians had noticed more children were experiencing surgical complications after low-risk procedures or dying after high-risk surgeries.
UNC Children's Hospital stands behind its heart program, which administrators call "very strong" today, according to NYT. Hospital leaders told the publication it conducted a "thorough internal investigation" in 2016 and that "criticism of the program was found to be unsubstantiated."
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