Manager convicted of stealing hospital funds

A former nurses' manager at Virginia's Lynchburg General Hospital was recently convicted of embezzlement after being accused of stealing from her employer by falsifying payroll records, according to the Lynchburg News & Advance.

Tracey Heisler, who worked at the healthcare facility between 2005 and her termination last July, initially denied the allegations before conceding that she may have doctored the records over two months. Later, she extended the period to six months before admitting it may have been even longer, the newspaper reports.

The embezzlement remained undetected for as long as it did because Heisler's hours in the supervisory position were not tracked. Additionally, as the manager of two nursing units, she was authorized to approve her own overtime.

Lauralyn Martin, the human resources director for the Centra Health system to which Lynchburg General belongs, testified that Heisler is believed to have stolen an estimated $46,000 by submitting time and attendance records that included inflated overtime, according to the news source.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, the former general counsel for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia faces a maximum of seven years in prison for embezzling $1.7 million from the hospital, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.