Officials from the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates the hospital, said the unread tests date back to 2005, instead of 2007, and include 5,000 echocardiograms that were never read by physicians, 1,000 more than previously suspected.
A review of the records discovered six patients who might not have received necessary medical treatment because physicians did not read their heart tests, according to the report.
As the State Health Department looks into what contributed to the lapse in oversight, outside legal and cardiology experts suggested the hospital should perhaps investigate any deaths among patients with unread tests to determine whether interpreting them might have made a difference, according to the report.
Read The New York Times‘ report on the unread echocardiograms at Harlem Hospital Center.
