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Doctor data ready online
Database has information about Colo. physicians
Herald Denver Bureau
An online database on every doctor in the state went live Sunday on the homepage of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, www.dora.state.co.us.
The database includes information about doctors' education, malpractice lawsuits, criminal record and disciplinary actions, such as a loss of hospital privileges or drug-prescribing privileges.
State Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, sponsored the law that created the database.
"It takes 60 seconds to check out your doctor, and it can literally mean the difference between life and death. And while it won't for most people, it's a good proactive practice to get into in taking ownership of our own health care," Carroll said.
The state assembled the database after a 2007 law known as the Michael Skolnik Medical Transparency Act. Skolnik died in 2004 at age 25 after surgery for a brain cyst. His family found out later that he didn't have a cyst, but the botched surgery killed him.
Skolnik's parents said the database would have helped them, because they did not have much time to research his doctor's history. His doctor had a history of malpractice in several other states, but at the time, Colorado didn't share information with the public on out-of-state lawsuits and disciplinary actions.
Some doctors' records were public before the law, but they were hard to find.
Doctors' lobbying groups supported the 2007 bill, and it passed overwhelmingly.
As of Sunday, the database had information about most of the 17,000 doctors licensed in Colorado. About 2,000 doctors had not submitted their information as of last week, but they have until the end of a 60-day grace period on July 31 to comply.
"If someone has a doctor who is not in the database, that should be a red flag, because that means they don't have a license," Carroll said.
Carroll thinks similar databases will be "the wave of the future" for all health-care professionals. She would like to see Colorado offer online information about nurses, psychiatrists, physical therapists and others. State regulators have told her it would be cheapest to expand the database to other medical professionals once current technology contracts expire in a future year.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
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