Arrowhead Med Center Submits Plan To Address Patient Safety Issues
Last week, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton submitted a correction plan to CMS addressing violations concerning patient care and safety, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
In April, CMS administrators warned Arrowhead that it risked losing Medicare funding by July 30 because of systemic problems related to patient care. More than half of Arrowhead's funding comes from Medicare and Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program.
Inspections conducted in November and February documented cases of patient abuse, improper sterilization, improper use of medication as a patient restraint and incomplete screenings of children.
On Friday, Arrowhead CEO Patrick Petre said that the hospital has been working since November to correct the problems the inspectors found.
Some physicians recently complained to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors that patients had been put at risk due to conflicts of interest between hospital management and physicians who have received hospital contracts. Petre denies any such conflict and said that there is no correlation between the allegations and the investigation findings.
CMS regional spokesperson Jack Cheevers said that the next step for Arrowhead will be an unannounced inspection to determine whether the medical center has successfully implemented its corrective plan (Hines, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 5/21).
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