The Joint Commission’s response to an ongoing Senate inquiry into a so-called “top-performing” psychiatric hospital has failed to address the most basic questions, according to the lawmaker leading the investigation.
“The Joint Commission identified 27 performance issues at Shadow Mountain but failed to address how and whether those issues were resolved,” writes Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a May 25 letter to the Joint Commission.
The committee has been investigating events at Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health, a 249-bed facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the wake of several lengthy reports by the news outlet Buzzfeed alleging, among other things, that patients were being held against their will until their insurance ran out.
Shadow Mountain’s owner, Universal Health Services, has denied the Buzzfeed reports of abuse and fraud at the facility, which the Joint Commission had rated as a top performer.
The commission responded in late April and mid-May to Grassley’s inquiries about its inspections of Shadow Mountain. But the senator said the commission’s correspondence “failed to answer several questions, including what corrective steps the Joint Commission required of Shadow Mountain in light of its numerous performance issues.”
In a May 12 email, the commission said, “on May 11, an Immediate Threat to Life was called based on concerns from our survey team.” The commission said the survey team identified “evidence of non-compliance of standards” in the following areas: “Environment of Care, National Patient Safety Goals, Leadership, Medication Management, Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services, Human Resources, and Performance Improvement.”
However, the commission noted, “the facility took immediate action to mitigate the risks that were posed by the concerns that our surveyors identified.”
Grassley expressed dissatisfaction. The commission “neither provided examples of the evidence of non-compliance nor steps it took to ‘mitigate the risks,’ ” he said, adding, “It is also unclear whether this particular facility’s accreditation has ever been suspended for threats to the health and safety of its patients.”
The senator demanded more details, including information concerning the scope of each of the 27 performance problems cited; how they were fixed; whether the commission has undertaken a root-cause analysis of the performance problems; whether it has revoked accreditation for the facility; how the survey team determined an “immediate threat to life” existed; and if the commission will make the Shadow Mountain accreditation report public.
A response is expected by June 8, said Grassley.
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