Hospital accreditation agency won't take action in U-M child porn case

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A hospital accreditation agency that was investigating a complaint about University of Michigan Health System’s 6-month delay in reporting child porn to police has decided not to take further action after looking at the university's internal review of the case, university officials said.

The Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals across the country, reviewed the internal report that says the university will bring in an outside expert to assess the "safety and security culture and help us achieve needed change."

University of Michigan Hospital

Findings of the internal review were turned over Friday to the Joint Commission, U-M spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. The Joint Commission emailed university officials Monday to say no other action was being taken, Fitzgerald said.

U-M Health System CEO Ora Pescovitz wrote an email to health system employees Tuesday to let them know and posted it on her blog.

Her message says in part, "we learned that The Joint Commission reviewed our response to the incident and our plan moving forward, and determined that they do not need to take further action at this time."

Bret Coons, a spokesman for the Joint Commission, did not have details Tuesday night on the decision.

Court records show that university officials waited months to report it to police after a resident physician found child porn on a thumb drive that was left in a locked lounge residents use in the Pediatric Emergency Department at U-M Hospital. The child porn was found in May, but wasn't reported to police until November. A physician who knew about the child porn came forward in November, in part, because of the Penn State University football child sex abuse scandal.

Stephen Jenson, 36, who worked as a resident physician at the hospital until late December, was charged with four counts of possessing child sexually abusive material. He is scheduled to return to court Thursday for a preliminary hearing.

Lee Higgins is a reporter for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by phone at (734) 623-2527 and email at leehiggins@annarbor.com.