Accrediting Agency Team Pays Surprise Visit to King Hospital

A team of medical investigators from the agency that accredits most of the nation’s hospitals paid a surprise visit Wednesday to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to review first-hand reports of widespread health care violations at the county-operated facility.

Officials from the Chicago-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) said their four-member inspection team would survey reported breakdowns in the areas of nursing, dietary care, infection control, quality assurance and administration at King. If severe deficiencies are confirmed, the hospital could lose its accreditation.

Federal health care officials have already threatened King with the loss of up to $60 million in public Medicare and Medi-Cal funding if the hospital does not correct all of its deficiencies by Dec. 21.

JCAHO officials said the investigation was spurred by a series of articles in The Times detailing numerous problems in patient care and administration at the hospital and by a state health deparment report in which King was cited for massive health code violations.

“The reports have raised doubts in our mind about the accreditation of the hospital,” said Donald W. Avant, vice president of accreditation surveys for JCAHO. “We’re trying to ensure that the hospital is still a credible organization.”

Avant said the investigators would release their findings to the accreditation commission with a series of recommendations that could include placing the facility on six months’ probation while it pursues a series of corrective measures. He said the agency, which accredits 80% of the nation’s hospitals, would release its findings within 90 days.

The county has pledged to correct all of the problems at King in order to prevent the loss of the hospital’s state license and millions in federal funding. County health officials are trying to turn the hospital around before the Dec. 21 fund cutoff deadline set by the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration.

Presumably if the hospital corrects those deficiencies to the satisfaction of the HCFA, it will be enough to also ensure accreditation.

The unannounced 8 a.m. arrival of the inspection team follows the release Tuesday of a county health department report which acknowledged serious health care deficiencies at the 430-bed hospital in Watts.

“All we know is that they’ll be here through Friday and that they’re calling all the shots,” said Sharon Wanglin, a spokeswoman with the county health department. “We are cooperating in every way possible and making as many people available to them as we can.”

The investigators met with Edward Renford, acting hospital administrator, and several other department heads Wednesday and planned to tour the facility during the next two days, Wanglin said. Dr. Adella DeLappe, head of the inspection team, said she could not disclose the team’s findings at this point.

State health inspectors spent two weeks at King in June spot-checking the hospital’s entire operation after an analysis of Medicare patient deaths nationwide ranked King in the bottom 50 of 5,577 hospitals surveyed throughout the country.

Among the major problems they cited in their report last month was a consistent shortage of registered nurses at King, resulting in unqualified nursing students and attendants providing “compromised care” to acutely ill patients. The investigators also found repeated failures by King’s dietary staff to assess patients’ nutritional requirements, overfilled and uncovered infectious waste containers, and poorly serviced medical equipment.