Michigan to Implement Prison Health Care Overhaul
LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Corrections will implement a series of reforms to improve inmate medical services after an independent audit recommended an overhaul of the state’s prison health care system.
The Chicago-based National Commission on Correctional Health Care highlighted substandard coverage and productivity levels from medical providers and an overly complicated organizational structure and operational model as the primary areas of deficiency and most pressing problems in need of remedy.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered the nine-month, $400,000 audit in the wake of several inmate deaths linked to inadequate medical care and neglect. A federal judge characterized healthcare at the state’s prisons, which houses approximately 50,000 inmates, as systematically defective and dangerous.
The NCCHC report contained 56 recommendations for organizational structure, administration and management and the timeliness, appropriateness and quality of services and delivery to improve medical and mental healthcare in the state prison system.
All but three of the recommendations are to be implemented under the DOC’s new Prisoner Health Care Improvement Project, officials say. The state is also switching to a risk-sharing model of health care provision, which is similar to an HMO system, officials say.
The NCCHC report recommends consolidating all mental health services under a single entity and developing an effective system for monitoring the terms-of-contract performance of Correctional Medical Services — the DOC’s private health care provider.
The report recommends upgrading the existing electronic medical record system, which was found to slow service delivery and decrease productivity. The use of telemedicine should be expanded.
Response times to requests for off-site specialty care, which can take between two weeks to one month, should be improved to no longer than one week. The one-week response time should be specified in future medical provider contracts.