NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation Denies Access to Public Records Yet Again

It seems like America's largest public hospital system is doing its best to hide the truth about the city's spring 2020 mass casualty event

The agency that controls New York City’s eleven public hospitals has finally responded to a request I submitted on 31 July 2024. They provided records related only to a portion of the request and denied the rest with excuses they’ve used in the past which amount to circumventing or breaking freedom of information statutes.

Request & Response

Over five months ago, I asked NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation (HHC) for the following records:

1. Daily census of all hospital patients intubated in the ICU from 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2022

2. Daily or weekly medication inventory for paralytics and sedative agents (propofol, ketamine, versed, fentanyl, phenobarbital, pentobarbital, etomidate, aldol) from 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2022

3. Daily or weekly doses of all antibiotics administered to all patients from 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2022

The request was quickly acknowledged and then ignored. I asked for a status update on 6 January 2025 and received a reply on 10 January 2025.

In response to the request for ICU intubation data, HHC sent weekly (not daily) census of patients intubated from January 2021 through December 2022 and refused to send data for January 2017 through December 2020.

The FOIL officer wrote:

Our electronic medical records changed to EPIC system in 2019-2020 and we do not have access to records in the legacy systems without substantial additional programming to satisfy your request for data from 2017 to 2020, which is not required by Public Officer Law 89 3 (a). Any data returned for intubated patients under value 10 have been de-identified and represented as <10, for privacy of the patients).

The EPIC system defense is contradicted by records HHC sent in response to other requests. In 2022, they gave me Elmhurst Hospital bed occupancy for April 2016 - December 2020. Last year, they provided daily deaths (all causes) and blood cultures taken in each hospital, albeit for 2020 only.

I’ll share the intubation data the agency provided in a future article.

My requests for paralytics & sedative agents and antibiotics administered were denied outright:

Response for both 2 and 3:

NYC Health + Hospitals do not currently produce a report that presents the data in the level of detail requested.

In addition, we do not capture data “Daily or weekly medication inventory for paralytics and sedative agents (propofol, ketamine, versed, fentanyl, phenobarbital, pentobarbital, etomidate, aldol) from 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2022” and “Daily or weekly doses of all antibiotics administered to all patients from 1/1/2017 - 12/31/2022" in a manner that would allow us to generate a report without additional programming and the creation of a new record without analyzing line data which would be a substantial amount of work which is beyond the scope required by Public Officer Law 89 3 (a).

Therefore, we have no records responsive to this FOIL request.

This is basically a carbon copy of what HHC has told me previously when denying other requests for data. There’s no real difference between what HHC said above and what they told me in November 2024 about why they couldn’t provide morgue census data (screenshot of email below).

My parsing of and reaction to their language “then” applies to what they told me most recently (reproduced below from previous article):

‘we have no records responsive’ - This is false and belied by the preceding sentences. Responsive records exist but are being denied.

‘We don’t currently produce a report…’ - But you used to?

‘…in the level of detail requested’ - What about at another level of detail?

‘we do not capture…in a manner that…’ - In what manner is it captured? Let’s see the records in that manner.

‘would allow us to generate a report without additional programming’ - What kind of programming? How hard can this be? This is 2024, not 1954.

‘creation of a new record’ - Creation of a new record how? I’ve heard this excuse before (1st time, 2nd time, 3rd time, 4th time¹); it makes no sense and appears contradictory to the law (discussed further below).

‘analyzing line data’ What does this mean and why is it required to generate a report? What needs to be analyzed?

‘a substantial amount of work beyond the scope required by Public Officer Law 89 3 (a)’ - It’s not clear which portion of the statute is being cited. There is no provision in the law for denying a request because it requires a ‘substantial’ amount of work. The task must be defined as burdensome and - even if it is - the statute says the agency ‘may engage an outside professional service to provide copying, programming or other services required to provide the copy, the costs of which the agency may recover pursuant to paragraph (c) of subdivision one of section eighty-seven of this article.’

The 10 January 2025 is the fifth time HHC has given me an excuse about data being in a digital format or place that would require creating a new record. I believe the agency is in violation state public records code and absolutely has the ability to retrieve the records.

The burden of maintaining databases in a way that facilitates responding to public records requests efficiently is on HHC. If they are keeping the data in a format that makes it very difficult for staff to retrieve, that’s not my (the requestor’s) fault - nor is it grounds to say there are no responsive records or otherwise deny the release of records that do exist.¹

Running List of Problems with Obtaining & Reconciling HHC Data

A running list of problems with data, requests and/or inquiries of or connected to NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation follows:

• Request to New York City Health + Hospitals Corporation (HHC) for daily death and blood culture data between 2017-2020 was delayed six months with a final response granting records for 2020 only; appeal denied.

• Inquiry to HHC COVID Research Committee regarding discrepancy between data supplied to researchers and data reported to HDNY: Ignored. (Related inquiries to lead researcher and John Ioannidis also unanswered.)

• Requests to HHC employees for data in two studies that report taxpayer-funded data were ignored after authors initially said they would supply it.

• Data for total staffed bed daily census at Elmhurst Hospital from 2016 - 2020 requested and denied; request for daily occupied beds granted.

• Discrepant data for Elmhurst Hospital bed occupancy.

• Discrepant data for Elmhurst emergency department visits.

• Request for daily number of emergency department visits (for any reason) to Elmhurst between 2006 and 2023 denied in part. HHC provided monthly data and for 2019 through 2023 only.

• Request for hospital morgue capacities granted; “no responsive records” for daily hospital morgue census data, 2016 -2023.

• (Present article): Request to HHC for intubation data partially granted; request for drug data denied.

I have no charitable explanation for why America's largest public hospital system seems to be doing its best to hide the truth about the city's spring 2020 mass casualty event.

Short of a funded lawsuit or federal order, HHC clearly has no intention of releasing any records that allow the public or researchers to raise more questions about what actually happened inside their hospitals’ walls.

---

For more on the many data-related problems with the New York City Spring 2020 Mass Casualty Event, see this article:

Eleven Serious Problems with the New York City Spring 2020 Mass Casualty Event

1. I made the same argument with the same language in this article: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/can-nyc-health-hospitals-corporation