UPDATE: City Controller candidate Cary Brazeman — who took the lead March 1 in exposing the “FIREGATE” scandal based on data from “Fix the City” activists Mike Eveloff and Jim O’Sullivan, issued a statement today condemning the Fire Department’s clampdown on public information. “The questions are many: What is the city covering up? For how many years did the city report false or misleading response-time data? Who knew the truth and when did they know it? Why didn’t the Fire Chief step out and shine the light on this? Where was the City Controller? The City Council’s Audits and Efficiency Committee? Most important, it is not acceptable for the city to provide emergency service at a level that fails to meet national standards 40% of the time. Will policymakers act to fix the problem? I can only hope so.”
EDITOR”S NOTE: in the face serious accusation of fudging its response to justify budget cuts and intensifying media investigations and political criticism, Los Angeles Fire Department officials changed their story at a meeting of its oversight commission Tuesday. Here is a link to the LA Times report on the commission meeting which carries the headline: “LA Chief offers new explanation of flaswed responsed times”. Late in the day, Chief Brian Cummings then announced that the on the advice of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office, the department would no longer disclose information to the public on most of its emergency activities. Here is a link to the Chief Brian Cummings website announcement. click here. Here then is the City News Service story as sent out Tuesday evening:
Date: 03-20-2012 7:07 PM – Word Count: 412
LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Citing a federal medical privacy law, the Los
Angeles Fire Department announced today it would no longer provide the public
with basic information about fires, medical calls, traffic accidents or other
emergencies it responds to.
LAFD public information officers contacted by City News Service today
about various fire calls — including a vehicle shearing a fire hydrant in
North Hills and a collision between a food truck and a car in downtown Los
Angeles that sent two people to hospitals — said they were not permitted to
provide any information, including the locations of the crashes. In the case of
the downtown collision, a spokesman refused to even confirm a wreck had
occurred, even though footage of the crash had already been shown on at least
one television news station.
The policy apparently took effect Sunday, when the LAFD began omitting
the addresses from media alerts it circulates about fires or other incidents to
which crews are dispatched. For example, a media alert issued Saturday by the
LAFD specified that fire crews had responded to a fire at 936 W. 49th St. By
Sunday, the department’s media alert about a reported fire in a three-story
apartment complex included no address or general location of the blaze.
LAFD Chief Brian L. Cummings issued a statement late today saying the
department — which has been under fire in recent weeks over its reporting of
response times — was following orders issued by the office of City Attorney
Carmen Trutanich, a candidate for county district attorney.
City Attorney’s Office officials could not be reached for immediate
comment.
Cummings said the department is subject to the Federal Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, “and is only
permitted to release Protected Health Information for the purposes of
treatment, billing and operations under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, without the
patient’s permission.”
“The department is currently seeking written advice from the city
attorney relative to the release of incident-specific PHI to a variety of
internal and external sources including elected officials, commissions, the
media and associated stakeholders,” Cummings said. “The city attorney has
preliminarily opined that the department should immediately cease the practice
of releasing PHI to any source not specifically authorized under the Privacy
Rule’s treatment, billing and operations exemption.
“I realize that this practice will significantly impact the manner in
which the department provides updates and notifications to a wide variety of
stakeholders,” he said.CNS-03-20-2012 19:07
The City just jumped the shark! They are wrong and it won’t take long to prove it.
Trutanich should resign. Obviously, statistical data does not give away patient information and the Fire Dept has this information and it is used for required reporting purposes to determine where LAFD stands in their response time.
Anyone, can make a CA pulic records act request for this information.
Perhaps Trutanich is now working in a capacity that he himself has determined to be as a criminal defense attorney for the Mayor and for Executives of the Fire Dept.
But what if the Mayor, his staff, and some managers of the Fire Dept fraudulently misrepresented the facts in order to re-appropriate public funds in the budget?
Is Trutanich looking out for the best interests of the City and its Citizens?
Has there ever been a time when all encumbents decided to quit their offices
and retire much like Grieg Smith did- 12th City Council District?
It would be historical if being important is what their motivation for running is.
Dennis, you have more money now than you will ever spend, why don’t you
start the ball rolling?
My personal reaction: Good idea!!!
Do you know if anyone is running against Mr. Macho Motorcycle Man. “Macho” only when he’s suited up in black leather and swaggering toward a motorist to be ticketed and chasing women-of-the-night who are practicing the world’s oldest profession.
Remember the Phoney Phone Tax? If it weren’t for Zine’s kissing the mayor’s ring we wouldn’t have a 10+% communications tax that replaced the 9.5% illegal tax for which there were no refunds. His 11th hour change of mind, after a powwow with Villaraigosa, to vote “YES” rather than “NO” on putting it on the ballot followed by major lies by Villaraigosa, the then police chief and others, caused those who didn’t know better to vote for it.
This isn’t the City of Angles; it’s the City of Idiots!
I live, work and breathe HIPPA each day and this is quite a stretch. So much so that perhaps it is time Trutanich is recalled or a class-action lawsuit is filed by the citizenry of all of Los Angeles as a response to some of his office’s most recent insane “legal advice” seriously impacting quality of life issues and public safety, including this and the over-reaction to the Skid Row suit coupled with taxpayer dollars he continuing to fight lawsuits he’s lost with expensive outside council.
What this really is about is a way to punish Brian Humphrey who has been a whistleblower and a fighter for the truth in the Dept. Dept brass has been looking for a way to silence him for some time.
It seems obvious that Trutanich’s advice has nothing to do with HIPPA and everything to do with the liability to the City for the substandard response time of its emergency services. It’s only a matter of time until the City gets sued for millions of $$$$ by the victims of this fiasco. And when you are about to get sued, the first thing your lawyer will tell you is “don’t talk to anyone“. From that point of view, what the City Attorney is doing is exactly what any attorney would do.
Does anyone else notice that anytime the Council morons get nailed on something they always blame to someone else. If they would do their damn jobs instead of wasting time and energy giving presentations to their friends and campaign donations people? Someone should have been on this and if not they should be fired. The Mayor has escaped blame for too long. Case in point is today’s resolution by council to tell KFI to hire minorities. Are you freakin kidding me???? If City Council members did their own damn job instead of telling others how to do theirs this city would be in better shape. The NERVE of these morons.
I’ve done insurance litigation including health insurance (ERISA) litigation since the 1980′s and Trutanich is full of Sh*t about HIPPA. He is ex post facto aiding and abetting a criminal cover-up for the falsified fire department data.