Two award-winning Connecticut journalism veterans teamed up with the Online Journalism Project of Connecticut to launch Connecticut Health Investigative Team (C-HIT), which will cover issues of health and safety in the state and surrounding areas.
Former Hartford Courant editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Lynne DeLucia and award-winning reporter Lisa Chedekel founded C-HIT, and stories in its first edition include: doctors who have been sanctioned for prescription abuse, financial malfeasance, and other misconduct in neighboring states practicing in Connecticut under unrestricted licenses; schools in the state using emergency restraints and seclusions on students more than 18,000 times last year; DePuy Orthopaedics paying out more than $80.8 million to 200 physicians nationwide since 2009 due to faulty hip-replacement parts; a physician shortage in Connecticut hampering patient access to primary care and high-risk specialty care; and Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated for PTSD by the VA and veteran centers rising 28 percent over the past year.
C-HIT will also offer searchable databases of up-to-date government regulatory information on healthcare facilities, providers, and other health-related issues.
C-HIT works in partnership with the Investigative News Network, Quinnipiac University, and other supporters, and it was funded by start-up grants from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut.
Students from Northeastern University and Emerson College will contribute neighborhood news to Your Town, Boston.com‘s network of hyperlocal news sites, under terms of separate agreements with both universities.
