KAISER PERMANENTE: Given 10 Days To Reduce Patient Waits

      The Department of Health Services' Licensing and Certification Division has given Kaiser Permanente 10 days to "correct long emergency room waits that may have contributed to the death of an 84-year-old man in December." The man died at the HMO's Walnut Creek emergency room on December 30. He came in "complaining of shortness of breath" at 9:30 a.m. "but was not seen by a doctor until 1:15 p.m." He "stopped breathing shortly afterward and attempts to revive him failed." According to Gil Martinez of the licensing division, "it is difficult to say whether the delay caused [the man's] death." San Francisco Chronicle reports that a Kaiser spokesperson said hospital administrators will not have time to review the report until this week (2/1).