Chapter 5 - THE AUDIT LOG
Hospital administration did not hand Elena a full investigative file.
But her attorney eventually obtained relevant records through the appropriate process.
Elena hired one two days after discharge.
Laura Chen practiced health-care employment and civil litigation in Cincinnati. She made Elena uncomfortable immediately by refusing to call anything proven before it was proven.
Elena liked her within ten minutes.
The first audit information established several facts.
Khloe had accessed Elena’s chart.
That was not automatically improper.
She was working on Preston’s service during part of Elena’s prenatal care, though not assigned as Elena’s primary physician.
But the access frequency was unusual.
Several late-evening entries.
Two from a workstation outside Preston’s department.
One on the night the delivery plan changed.
More important:
The note documenting Elena’s supposed decision to cancel the C-section had been entered under Preston’s credentials.
Elena stared at Laura.
“He did it.”
“His account did.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No.”
Laura tapped the page.
“We establish whether he personally entered it, delegated access improperly, or left credentials available.”
Elena exhaled.
Accuracy.
Again.
The note had been signed at 10:48 p.m.
Preston had been home.
Elena remembered.
They watched television.
He took his laptop upstairs after she went to bed.
The following morning, her C-section disappeared.
Khloe’s account accessed Elena’s chart nine minutes before Preston’s note was entered.
Then again six minutes afterward.
The sequence was enough for the hospital to investigate.
Not enough to explain motive.
Then Dr. Pierce provided another piece.
She had documented Elena’s preference for cesarean after their office visit.
The note was clear.
Patient elects scheduled cesarean after counseling. Questions answered.
That record never vanished.
Preston’s later entry contradicted it.
What Elena did not understand was why he would risk altering medical documentation over a disagreement between spouses.
Laura asked:
“What exactly happened between you and Khloe before this?”
Elena described the phone call.
The chart-access complaint.
The midnight texts.
Then remembered something else.
Two months earlier, Elena had filed a complaint with the hospital’s privacy office.
Not against Khloe personally.
Against unauthorized discussion of her pregnancy.
Elena had attended a charity dinner where one of Preston’s colleagues congratulated her on “finally agreeing to let Preston manage the big-baby problem.”
Elena had never discussed her ultrasound with that physician.
She asked Preston afterward.
He said medical colleagues talked.
Elena said her pregnancy was not department gossip.
The next morning she contacted privacy.
Khloe’s name came up during the inquiry because she had accessed the chart.
Preston was furious.
“You’re going to get a resident disciplined over nothing.”
Elena said:
“I asked who has been looking at my medical information.”
“You’re jealous of her.”
“No.”
“You keep saying that because it sounds less ugly than the truth.”
Now Laura asked:
“Did the privacy complaint close?”
Elena did not know.
Laura requested preservation of those records too.
Three days later, the hospital’s response changed the entire story.
The complaint had not closed.
It had expanded.
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Because Elena was not the only patient whose chart Khloe had accessed unexpectedly.
And Preston was Khloe’s supervising physician on several of those cases.
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