Riverside County grand jury report lists medication errors, antiquated equipment and crowded conditions.
A hospital campus in Riverside specializing in mental health gave out the wrong medications, is overcrowded and has outdated technology, according to a county grand jury report.
The report issued this week
scrutinized conditions at Riverside County Regional Medical Center’s Arlington
campus. The county-run facility is separate from the main hospital in Moreno
Valley and is located on County Farm Road near The Galleria at Tyler mall.
The county has 90 days to
officially respond to the report.
“The county’s response will go
to the Board of Supervisors and then to the grand jury within the 90 days
allotted,” said county spokesman Ray Smith. “The staff looks forward to
updating the board at that time about recent accomplishments at the campus and
about plans for the future.”
With a $50 million annual
budget, the campus has a 24-hour emergency treatment center and a 77-bed
inpatient facility for adults and teenagers. More than 14,000 people visited
the facility last year.
The civil grand jury, a sworn
panel of 19 citizens who spend a year looking into public agencies and
suggesting improvements, reported finding “several instances of pharmaceutical
mishaps” when reviewing the facility’s records, including:
• Wrong medications sent home with patients.
• Missing or expired medications in the facility’s inventory.
• Medicine given at the wrong time.
• Doctors transcribing medication to the wrong patient’s chart.
The jury described the campus
as “inadequate,” with 36 to 42 patients a day being treated in an emergency
center designed for 20. Fire safety rules mandating that doors be unlocked
provide an exit for involuntarily committed patients, the report read.
The nurses’ stations are
cramped and there’s not enough interview rooms because there are too many
patients, the jury found. “Medical equipment is antiquated” and “computer
systems are several generations behind current standards,” the report read.
Also, the lack of a connection
to the main hospital’s computer servers prevents patient records from being
consolidated and boosts the chances of charting errors, the grand jury
reported.
To fix the problems, the jury
recommends ongoing staff training on how to properly dispense medicine and the
importance of pharmaceutical security.
County supervisors should
fast-track scheduled repairs to the facility “while simultaneously negotiating
with an experienced hospital construction firm to design and begin construction
of a new facility,” the jury found.
The jury’s report comes at a
time of great change for the entire county-run hospital network.
In recent years, the county
hospital in Moreno Valley suffered from budget shortfalls that approached $50
million. The county replaced the management team, hired an interim CEO
specializing in troubled hospitals and spent $26 million on a consultant to
come up with ways to cut costs and raise money.
A permanent CEO is now in place
and for the first time in three years, the hospital has a positive cash
balance. The county hospital is changing from a safety-net facility solely
focused on indigent care to a more traditional medical center that, for the
first time, will take private insurance for non-emergency care.
As part of the transition, the
hospital will be known as Riverside University Health Center and become part of
Riverside University Health System.
May
21, 2015
The
Press Enterprise
By Jeff Horseman
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