WASHINGTON - March 23 - Thanks to a tip from Barbara Feder Ostrov, deputy editor of ReportingonHealth.org, the joint Center for Public Integrity and Sunlight Foundation Data Mine project has highlighted the shortcomings of the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB). The NPDB was created by a 1986 law to log disciplinary actions, malpractice payments, license revocations and loss of clinical privileges involving physicians and other health professionals. The database was intended to help keep tabs on incompetent or negligent physicians who moved across state borders.

However, while aggregate data in the NPDB is publicly accessible, lobbying by the American Medical Association blocked the public from viewing individual doctors' histories. Only authorized users, such as hospital administrators, have full access to the database.

AMA spokeswoman Katherine Hatwell said the organization opposes making names public because the database "is riddled with duplicate entries [and] inaccurate data." Physicians' credentials and disciplinary histories are available through "state-based systems already in place," she said. A Data Mine review of the Federation of State Medical Boards' website showed its database lacks some information in the NPDB and charges a fee of $9.95 per name searched.

The Data Mine is a new online series by the Center for Public Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation that identifies inaccessible or difficult to use federal government information. Want to help unveil federal data that should be made public?

Email your tips to: datamine@publicintegrity.org and you will be publicly credited on the Center's website.