Dallas' Parkland Hospital has submitted an action plan.

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.parklandhospital.com/whoweare/cms_survey/cms-official-report-actionplan.html

Needless to say, it will take me a while to explore all the corrective actions.I'll keep you posted on what I find.Hopefully,staffing will be one of them.

[w8liftinglady]

1. Increased ER RN staffing is one outcome

(which,BTW, will result in about One Million more dollars in costs for the 10 day and 10 night RNs recommended- not including benefits)

[w8liftinglady]

2. Increasing supply change-out in outpatient clinics

expired medications and supplies were recovered in several of the homeless and community outreach clinics.
Again... increased funding will be required to replace and dispose of expired medications and supplies.

[w8liftinglady]

3. Infection control... major issue.

Huge re-education program begun to reinforce staff needs for infection control.Hopefully,increased staffing will alleviate this to some degree.

[w8liftinglady]

4. Care: The transfer/referral of pediatric patients to Children's Medical Center

Prior to this inspection,Parkland had an assumed agreement with CMC for all Pediatric patients with the exception of burn patients and pregnant pediatric patients.This enabled fast transfer of patients in near-cardiac arrest to a pediatric ICU.The determination has been made that a Memorandum of Transfer must be established between Parkland and Children's Physician and administrative staff (Which connects by a hallway).this will result in a delay of treatment (my opinion only)

[w8liftinglady]

5. the hospital did not post signage in the Emergency Dept

Based on observation, record review and interview,
the hospital did not post signage in the Emergency
Department (ED) that was prominent and
conspicuous and likely to be noticed by all
individuals entering the ED as well as waiting for
examination and treatment which specified the
rights of individuals with respect to examination and
treatment of emergency medical conditions and
women in labor as required by the Emergency
Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)

The hospital has made adjustments in their signage.for the record, hospital signage are posted in English and Spanish with Braille.their size and location were determined to be inadequate. We'll see what the outcome of this is, in light of the age of the facility.

[w8liftinglady]

6. There is a problem with exclusively computer based physician contact

direct phone numbers were not available for nursing staff to emergently contact attending physicians..all communications were done via email with Resident to fellow to Attending....BIG problem.
Needless to say,this one needs to be corrected ASAP

[w8liftinglady]

7. and, sigh... unfortunately...

the inspectors had to accompany patients who had been given written directions to the main ER..
Patients who had ambulatory,pain or visual problems and who should have been transferred via wheelchair or stretcher were found by inspectors walking down the hall trying to find the ER.The inspectors ended up transporting the patients themselves.

Gotta work on that one. Hopefully,increasing staffing will help.