Ex-hospital CFO claims he was fired for blowing the whistle on chairman of the board

The former CFO of Sebastopol, Calif.-based Sonoma West Medical Center has sued the hospital, alleging he was fired for reporting the chairman of the board's corrupt behavior to hospital officials.

In his suit, former CFO Douglas Goldfarb claims he was fired after telling hospital officials that Chairman of the Board Dan Smith insisted Sonoma West use a "seriously defective" electronic medical records system designed by Mr. Smith's company, according to Courthouse News.

The system, HarmoniMD, "intermingles" patient records, causing one patient's medication to appear on another patient's record, and it once caused patients to miss their antibiotics because it reverted time back to the 1900s, according to Mr. Goldfarb. He claims that the flawed system also delayed patient billing and caused the hospital to lose money.

Mr. Goldfarb further alleges that Mr. Smith pressured him to falsely report that the hospital had an operating profit. "As CFO, I was expected to tolerate, and participate in, accounting and recordkeeping practices that absolutely did not comply with GAAP," Mr. Goldfarb said.

According to Courthouse News, Mr. Goldfarb's complaint mirrors a lawsuit filed by Sonoma West's former chief nursing officer in June.

Sonoma West operated at an $800,000 loss in June. In July, the hospital signed an agreement for Pipeline Health to manage its operations. Pipeline CFO Robert Heinemeier is serving as interim CFO of Sonoma West.

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