By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
PROVIDENCE – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island and Roger Williams Medical Center have agreed to terminate the deferred prosecution agreement they signed in January 2006.
Roger Williams agreed to undertake certain ethical reforms instead of facing prosecution for alleged wrongdoing by two executives. (READ MORE.) Charges against the hospital were dismissed on May 1, 2006, by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres.
By signing the agreement, Roger Williams conceded that the government had sufficient proof to convict Robert A. Urcioli and Frances P. Driscoll – its former president/CEO and vice president, respectively – of corruptly employing then state Sen. John A. Celona to advance the hospital’s legislative agenda, and it further agreed that the two executives had acted within their “apparent authority,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Urcioli was sentenced this February to 36 months in prison and Driscoll to eight months plus eight months of home confinement. (PBN subscribers can READ MORE) Both are free on bail pending appeals of their convictions, prosecutors said.
“The Deferred Prosecution Agreement has accomplished the objectives that we set,” U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente said in a statement today. “It generated needed ethical reforms, yet allowed the hospital to maintain its vital role in Rhode Island’s health care system and preserved the livelihood of hundreds of very dedicated professionals.”
Changes at Roger Williams under the deal have included:
• The creation of the position of ethics monitor, and the hiring of former U.S. Attorney Margaret Curran as monitor and Leonard Henson, former chief assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass., as her assistant.
• The establishment of a comprehensive ethics program including training for hospital staff, an ethics newsletter and a toll-free ethics hotline staffed by an outside firm.
• The implementation of new governance provisions, including term limits for hospital board members, that have resulted in the changeover of 16 seats on the hospital board. (READ MORE.)
“Last year, we pledged to work hard to regain the public trust and this is an important step in that process,” hospital President and CEO Kenneth H. Belcher said in a statement. “Today, Roger Williams is a better and stronger institution because of the programs and systems we have implemented with the guidance of the U.S. Attorney’s office and our monitors.”
The deferred prosecution deal and the hospital’s supervision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office will be terminated Dec. 31, under a letter of agreement signed this month by both Corrente and Belcher.
But certain provisions will continue, Corrente’s office said. Roger Williams has agreed to permanently maintain the ethics officer position created under the agreement. The hospital also has agreed to continue funding, at least through July, both the Prisoner Re-Entry Assessment Program and the Ryan White Foundation Grant; those programs were established as part of its free-care commitment.
Roger Williams Medical Center, with nearly 1,400 employees, provides a broad range of adult health services to residents of Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. To learn more, visit www.rwmc.org.
Additional information is available from the Office of the U.S. Attorney, District of Rhode Island, at www.usdoj.gov/usao/ri/.
