According to Becker’s Hospital Review, Tennessee resident Misty Dawn Bacon posed as a nurse to work for eight different healthcare providers between 2012 and 2018. Bacon used the license numbers of real nurses with similar first names. One patient Bacon treated required a three-day hospital stay. Bacon has plead guilty to fraud, identity theft and nursing without a license. She has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.
In 2018, clinical social worker Diane Sylvia, asked one of her patients, a so-called former gangster, to attack her ex-boyfriend. The patient, an undercover FBI agent, recorded their conversations. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Sylvia kept in touch with the agent over the next several days, at times wavering on whether she wanted her ex killed or simply maimed.” She recently pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit a violent crime. The state suspended her license as a social worker as a result of the arrest.
The Oregon Health Authority failed to hold four organizations accountable to Medicaid rules, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services audit. The audit, which focused on four coordinated care organizations, found that they failed to verify provider credentials, sometimes allowing people to work beyond the scope of their licenses. The organizations also failed to report providers with licensing board actions against them, according to the Lund Report.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has introduced COVID Alert Pa, a mobile contact tracing app that alerts people when they come into close contact with someone infected by COVID. The app, available in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, shows over 23,000 downloads, according to Governing. To avoid the need to create an app for each state, Pennsylvania plans to work with the Association of Public Health Laboratories to enable operability of the app in other states.
Non-profit group Kansas Appleseed wants the state to investigate complaints and track child welfare agencies through the creation of an Office of the Child Advocate. Kansas settled a class action suit filed by Kansas Appleseed in July. The group had accused the state of moving kids too frequently and not providing adequate mental health support. Advocates believe the state needs a single, independent office to oversee child complaints, according to The Hour.
The Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board has authorized the issuance of emergency roofing licenses in response to widespread structural damage in Baldwin in Mobile counties caused by Hurricane Sally. The emergency licenses last 60 days, with normal licensing procedures resuming after Nov. 13, according to FOX10. The emergency licenses require applicants to complete an application, pay a fee and demonstrate that they are bonded.
The American Journal of Epidemiology reports that 40% of healthcare workers with COVID show no symptoms of the infection. The research reviewed 97 studies published in 2020, involving over 230,000 healthcare workers in 24 countries. Forty-three percent of those testing positive worked in hospitalization/non-emergency wards during the screening.
Former leaders of Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, a Massachusetts home for aging veterans, were criminally charged for their mishandling of a COVID outbreak at the facility. An independent report showed poor choices, like combining two dementia units, despite the fact that some patients were already infected with the virus, according to CBS News. According to Attorney General Maura Healey, “we believe this is the first criminal case in the country brought against those involved in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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