Newly released data from the Oregon Health Authority confirm a spike in reported hospital-acquired infections at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in 2022 and 2023.

The increase in infections coincides with the time frame during which a hospital employee is alleged to have replaced pharmaceutical fentanyl in patients’ IV bags with non-sterile tap water.

The Medford Police Department and hospital are conducting separate investigations.

On Thursday, the Health Authority confirmed that the agency had launched its own investigation.

“Oregon Health Authority is aware of reports of incidents at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford involving a nurse alleged to have tampered with pharmaceutical fentanyl used to treat severe pain and introduced tap water in patients’ intravenous lines,” Jonathan Modie, lead communications officer at the agency, said in a statement.

“OHA is investigating reports that the incidents led to health care-associated infections that severely injured, and may have caused the deaths of, several patients.”

The Health Authority could not immediately confirm when the agency opened its investigation.

Hospital and law enforcement officials have declined to confirm the number of potential victims, but multiple hospital sources, who declined to be identified, say dozens of patients were injured by drug diversion — the act of replacing a medication with another substance.

Relatives of patients who died while being cared for in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit spoke with the Rogue Valley Times after being contacted by hospital officials who told them their loved ones might have been harmed by a nurse tampering with IV medication. The families said the deaths occurred in November and December of 2022 and July of 2023.

Central line infections are reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as part of the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program. Infections are also reported monthly to the Health Authority.

Statistics published by the Health Authority show low instances of central line infections at Asante Rogue Regional between 2016 and 2021. According to the Hospital Healthcare-Associated Infections Data Dashboard, infection rates were as low as one per year in 2016 and 2018, two per year in 2017 and 2019, and three in 2021. Infections in 2020 topped out at seven during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Data for 2022 and 2023 are not posted on the state database.

An information request submitted by the Times, however, yielded records that show a substantial increase: 15 infections for the hospital in 2022, 14 in 2023.

Modie said in his statement that the Health Care Regulation and Quality Improvement Program (HCRQI) at the agency would determine if federal and state requirements related to health care quality and safety had been met.

“Non-compliance at a federal level can result in the loss of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) certification, which can affect a facility’s ability to get reimbursement for the health care services it provides,” the statement says. “Non-compliance (at) the state level can result in civil monetary penalties, license suspension or even license revocation, or less-formal enforcement actions such as plans of correction requirements and return to compliance revisits.”

Contacted on Thursday, hospital officials again declined to comment on the status of the investigation. They reiterated an earlier statement: “We were distressed to learn of this issue. We reported it to law enforcement and are working closely with them.” They also declined to discuss the increased infection rates reported to the state.

A July 6 statement on Asante’s website reported “ongoing efforts” to reduce hospital-acquired infections.

The statement read: “After a spike in CLABSI cases over the winter, ARRMC’s clinical and support teams rallied to examine processes, aseptic technique and the environment to break the chain of transmission. … This diligence brought a drop in central-line-associated blood infections.”

This statement, along with other public posts on Asante’s website, was briefly locked behind a log-in screen after the Times published its first story on the police investigation into the nurse’s alleged actions.

As of Thursday afternoon, Medford police had reported no updates on the investigation or the arrest of a possible suspect.