Hiring nurses, physicians and other healthcare professionals is often challenging in the best circumstances. Taking a job at a jail or prison can be daunting for many healthcare professionals, and certainly fails to qualify as the best circumstances for many people.
Meeting the minimum care requirements afforded to inmates by law, via the Supreme Court case Estelle v. Gamble, adds a particular level of complexity to this already daunting situation. Prior to this momentous decision, in 1976, most U.S. jails only provided inmates with first aid. Fortunately, this great country has come a long way since then, both ethically and technologically.
Originally the Department of Corrections employed healthcare staff directly, now states are contracting with private companies to provide care. While it can be difficult to prove deliberate indifference, there are certainly plenty of those incarcerated willing to try. It is often both expensive and time consuming to battle litigation, and unfortunately contracting healthcare from a private party does little to mitigate this potential risk. Often, the tedious oversight and overall man hours required to ensure that healthcare providers are meeting their contractual obligations defeats the purpose of hiring them in the first place.
With everything taking place at a prison daily it is unrealistic to expect the corrections department to monitor healthcare staffing, documentation, or to ensure the Medication Administration Record (MAR) is completed properly for example.
What Medicalistics Can Do for You
Medicalistics seamlessly blends real time data with cutting edge software technology to ensure that you can monitor all these things and many more without leaving the comfort of your desk. Do you know when inmates are receiving medications and medical tests and if they are done by the prescribed deadlines? Are you checking the MAR for errors and or skipped medications? Are you prepared for a major healthcare litigation trial? If the answers to any of these questions is “no,” there is good odds that Medicalistics can help.
The risk of lawsuits will never be entirely avoided, although following best practices and maintaining NCCHC/ACA compliance certainly mitigates that risk. Medicalistics enables organizations to close gaps they may not even have been aware of, further minimizing the threat of legal action.
To learn more about how Medicalistics can help you avoid potentially expensive litigation, or to see all the other ways we are using technology to mitigate risk, check out our website.
