Malpractice database reopened

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 10 (UPI) -- A controversial public Web site containing data on the malpractice and disciplinary histories of thousands of U.S. doctors has been reopened, officials said.

But new restrictions have been placed on the use of information contained in the National Practitioner Data Bank that have drawn protests from journalists and patient safety advocates, The Kansas City (Mo.) Star reported Thursday.

Anyone downloading information from the database will have to agree in advance not to share the information with others or use it to identify doctors, restrictions critics call unworkable and beyond the legal authority of the Health and Human Services agency in charge of the database.

The Health Resources and Services Administration "is overreaching and interpreting the law in a way that restricts the use of the information much more than the law specifies," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who last week demanded the agency reopen the public data file.

The public database is designed to maintain the anonymity of doctors by identifying them through randomly assigned numbers, but journalists have used court records and other public documents to identify doctors in the public files who have lengthy histories of malpractice payments or other problems.

"The exclusion from access by reporters doing important investigative work …is unacceptable," said patient safety advocate Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group.