Olga Pierce
Olga Pierce is a reporter at ProPublica, specializing in data-driven stories.
Olga Pierce is a reporter, specializing in data-driven stories. Previously, she was deputy data editor at ProPublica.
She is a winner of the 2015 Deadline Club Award for Medical Reporting for her work on patient harm. In 2011 she received a Livingston Award for National Reporting and an honorable mention for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, both for her reporting on increasing corporate interference in the drawing of congressional districts. She also shared 2011 Scripps Howard and Society of Business Editors and Writers awards as part of a team focusing on foreclosures.
Olga has appeared on CBS News and C-SPAN, and her stories have been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune and the Hindustan Times in New Delhi.
She is a graduate of the Stabile Investigative Journalism Seminar at Columbia University, where she won a Horton Prize for health reporting. Olga is fluent in Czech and has a bachelor’s in international economics from Georgetown University.
Patient Safety Voices Advice
More than 1 million patients suffer harm each year in U.S. health care facilities. Often, their harm isn’t acknowledged even as they live with the consequences. ProPublica set out to capture their stories. Here is what we learned.
Orthopedic Board Will Use Surgeon Scorecard to Help Re-certify Docs
The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery says ProPublica’s analysis can help identify surgeons with a high rate of complications.
Our Rebuttal to RAND’s Critique of Surgeon Scorecard
The think tank claims Scorecard’s methods aren’t reliable, but its commentary is undermined by supposition, conflicts of interest and a lack of evidence.
For a Surgeon With a History of Complications, a Felony Past
As a medical student, Florida spine surgeon Constantine Toumbis stabbed a friend outside a bar. Documents show he omitted or misrepresented his record in regulatory filings.
Surgeon Scorecard and Cancer Centers
The names of five cancer centers were missing from Surgeon Scorecard. We have updated the database so you can now find them.
Surgeon Scorecard
We calculated complication rates for surgeons performing one of eight elective procedures under Medicare, carefully adjusting for differences in patient health, age and hospital quality. Use this database to know more about a surgeon before your operation.
How We Measured Surgical Complications
The methodology for our analysis of surgical complication rates.
Making the Cut: Why Choosing the Right Surgeon Matters Even More Than You Know
A ProPublica analysis of nearly 17,000 surgeons finds stark differences in complications rates for some of the most routine elective procedures.
Unapproved, but Used in Surgery
A firm sold 18,000 knee-replacement tools before the government called a halt.
The Two Things That Rarely Happen After a Medical Mistake
Patients seldom are told or get an apology when they are harmed during medical care, according to a new study based on results from ProPublica’s Patient Harm Questionnaire.