Inspectors: Oregon State Hospital's Junction City campus failed to protect patients
State inspectors found myriad lapses at the Oregon State Hospital's Junction City campus, including failures to take steps to protect patients from physical harm.
Administrators have until Sunday to submit a corrective action plan or risk losing its Medicare and Medicaid certification.
The findings stem from an inquiry into an incident last year when a patient walked away from an outing, but the investigation’s scope broadened and uncovered more, including failure to protect patients from harm.
More on the incident:State hospital psychiatric patient in custody after leaving outing in Alton Baker Park
The resulting 134-page report paints a picture of a facility that routinely failed to safeguard patients even after unsafe conditions had been documented.
The lapses put patients in danger from other patients, resulting in at least one alleged sexual assault and physical attacks, inspectors alleged, and staff also failed to protect patients from self-harm.
OSH provides psychiatric treatment for adults from throughout the state who need hospital-level mental health treatment. The hospital has two campuses: a main campus in Salem and a second campus in Junction City. The Junction City location serves people who have been civilly committed, were voluntarily committed by a guardian, or have been committed under a guilty except for insanity plea to criminal behavior related to their mental illness.
The state hospital is eligible to receive federal Medicare and Medicaid payments as long as it remains in compliance with federal requirements.
The federal inquiry focused on Oregon State Hospital’s Junction City location in December 2021 and January 2022. The review was conducted by surveyors that are part of Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division. These surveyors review complaints at hospitals and other health care facilities in Oregon on behalf of federal regulators.
The surveyors identified federal and state compliance issues ranging from the lack of a permanent, onsite administrator to manage the Junction City campus on a daily basis, to losing sight of patients while on outings, to shortcomings in documenting follow-up reviews after patient-to-patient altercations.
The report is available to the public online. It cites the hospital for deficiencies in the areas of compliance with law, patient rights, form and retention of records and patient safety. It states that the hospital failed to provide adequate preventative measures that created actual harm for patients including failure to prevent patient-to-patient sexual contact, sexual assault and physical altercations as well as failure to prevent patient suicide attempts and self-harm.
“I appreciate the rigor and thoroughness of our state health care regulatory surveyors,” OHA Director Patrick Allen said in a statement. “The state hospital will act promptly and transparently to fix these gaps.”
Administrators at OSH must submit a corrective action plan by May 15, which marks the 10-day deadline from the date of the federal agency’s notification.
“Our staff at the Oregon State Hospital want to provide the highest quality care to our patients so they can recover and return to live healthy and productive lives in their communities,” State hospital Superintendent Dolly Matteucci said. “We look forward to addressing each of the administrative, documentation and supervision issues highlighted in this report.”
Contact reporter Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick at Tatiana@registerguard.com or 541-521-7512, and follow her on Twitter @TatianaSophiaPT. Want more stories like this? Subscribe to get unlimited access and support local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Inspectors: Junction City hospital failed to protect patients
