Salem, OR)_ The Joint Commission (TJC) notified Oregon State Hospital (OSH) today that it has identified a serious threat to patient health and safety at the hospital based on findings during a survey that took place March 24-25 on the Salem campus, in response to a sentinel event. The surveyor observed unit activity, reviewed video footage and documentation (including clinical documentation, policies, training records, and more), and conducted staff interviews.
The survey identified conditions that TJC believes could pose a serious threat to patient health and safety in three areas:
- providing a safe environment for patients in seclusion
- patient assessment during seclusion and following a fall
- emergency medical response, including immediacy of response and emergency communication procedures.
OSH leadership has prioritized the TJC findings and assigned workgroup leads for each of the deficiencies. Those individuals have started building their teams to develop immediate remediation plans. OSH leadership has also reached out to union leaders to make sure represented staff who know the work well are included on those teams. OSH took immediate actions to activate an existing plan to create a seclusion response team and is already seeing positive results.
TJC will conduct a follow-up survey no later than Thursday, April 17 to validate whether or not OSH has remediated the threats identified in the survey.
If successful, TJC will reaffirm OSH’s accreditation status and conduct at least one follow-up survey to assess OSH’s sustained implementation of its corrective actions.
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