If confession is good for the soul, Trinity Medical Center’s Vice President for Hospital Operations Kathy Cunningham must be feeling better tonight.

On behalf of hospital, she stepped forward today to admit Trinity dropped the ball in not reporting a June Hepatitis A case to the Rock Island County Health Department within 24 hours as required by Illinois state law.

Timely reporting of that case might have prevented the Hepatitis A outbreak now surrounding the Milan, IL McDonald’s, which potentially exposed 10,000 people to the virus.   To date, there have been 23 confirmed cases of Hepatitis A in the two-state Quad Cities metro area where Milan is located.

Cunningham told the media today the Rock Island County Health Department called Trinity on Monday, July 13^th, about the June case but the hospital was not able to locate any information about it. 

What they could not find was the record of the June 16^th positive test result for McDonald’s employee Cheryl Scram. In the current outbreak, she is “Patient Zero.”

The Trinity investigation found the hospital failed to timely report both the June case and three others in July. “It is with genuine regret we share the information that our process of reporting was not within the required time frame because patient safety is a number one priority for us,” Cunningham said.

Hepatitis A cases must be reported “as soon as possible, within 24 hours.” Anyone with Hepatitis A “shall not work as food handlers or in sensitive occupations during the period when infection control precautions apply.”

The Illinois National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (I-NEDSS), a web-based system, for reporting, and other electronic means can also be used. However, it appears Trinity mailed the June report to the Rock Island Health Department where it went un-opened.