State cites St. Luke’s for violation
Emergency room procedures deficient
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
The Idaho Department of Health has found St. Luke’s Wood
River Medical Center in violation of state licensing requirements for
written procedures in its emergency room.
Hospital administrator Jon Moses was advised in a letter
Friday that St. Luke’s has failed to "formulate and implement
complete policies and procedures for emergency medical services to address
patients with psychiatric illness."
The letter also informed Moses the information the state
had gathered on the violation had been forwarded to a federal agency in a
separate investigation for possible federal law violations.
Hospital spokeswoman Kerry George confirmed St. Luke’s
had received the letter.
"We are currently developing a plan of correction
that will address the state’s findings which is to document the
procedure in writing," George said in a written statement.
"It is important to note for your readers that St.
Luke’s was not found to be deficient in the care we provided to the
patient identified in their report or any other patient prior to or since
the case at hand."
Theresa Bush, director of nursing services for St. Luke’s,
said it is common to have deficiencies in emergency room procedures.
Attached to the letter was a Statement of Deficiencies and
Plan of Correction that described the violation. The statement also
includes testimony from the emergency room physician, the director of
nursing services, and the director of emergency services.
The investigations were initiated after Health and Welfare
received a complaint from a Ketchum woman who said her daughter was in a
suicidal state but was turned away from treatment in November.
The letter to Moses, which accompanied the Statement of
Deficiency, gave him until March 1 to address how the hospital will
correct the problem.
The findings show the hospital was aware it did not have a
written procedure for treating the mentally ill in its emergency room at
the time of the incident.
The ER physician who treated the girl told Health and
Welfare that "she was unaware of a policy that provided direction to
staff regarding psychiatric patients who were not under an involuntary
hold by law enforcement."
Dr. Keith Sivertson, the director of emergency services,
and Bush told Health and Welfare that there was "no policy in place
to provide direction to staff regarding how to handle patients at ER with
acute psychiatric illnesses."
But the findings also show the mother and patient refused
advice from two family physicians for the girl to go to a psychiatric
facility. One was the girl’s psychiatrist and the other was her
pediatrician.
Meanwhile, St. Luke’s is still being investigated for
allegedly refusing emergency treatment to a patient, a violation of
federal law.
The matter is being investigated by the Health Care
Financing Administration (HCFA) at its Region X Office in Seattle.
Bill Collins, special assistant to Region X administrator
Linda Ruiz, said the report from Idaho Health and Welfare arrived at the
Seattle office on Friday. HCFA began processing the complaint on Tuesday.
HCFA is the federal agency that finances, runs and
oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the hospitals that
participate in them.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)
is the federal law that prohibits participating hospitals from refusing
treatment to patients.
