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Timeline to be imposed on resolution of incident reports with state public, behavioral health services

Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Health CareState Government
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The state is imposing a new timeline for resolving incident reports relating to its inpatient and outpatient public and behavioral health services, a policy change officials say is unrelated to a recent audit of the deplorable conditions in certain community homes but will ensure that any issues are addressed in a timely manner.

The policy, which is up for final approval at the Commission on Behavioral Health on Friday, will require the existing Division Incident Report Committee to resolve any issues that come before it within three months or escalate the issue to the deputy administrator of the Division of Public and Behavioral Health’s Clinical Services Branch. DuAne Young, who took over the deputy administrator role in February, said that during a regular review of the department’s policies he realized that there was no policy in place to prevent issues from dragging on for months without resolution.

“What I noticed was there was no time limit. What if these things go on for four or five meetings?” Young said.

Young said that although the committee hasn’t had a lot of incident reports that continue without resolution and nine times out of 10 an incident is resolved immediately, he wanted to create a fixed timeline for resolving the complaints.

The new timeline will apply to all inpatient and outpatient behavioral health facilities the division oversees, including those that originate from within the so-called community-based living arrangement homes — private facilities that house on-average about four patients each in an independent-living situation meant to provide them monitoring, support and help with behavioral skills. The division came under fire earlier this year after a legislative audit revealed that the state had done nothing to address deplorable conditions within the homes,

Young said the policy change is not specifically in response to the issues identified with the homes, although the division has made other policy changes to address the conditions in the homes. For instance, any incidents related to the community-based living arrangement homes are required to be automatically escalated up to leadership.

Under the new timeline, the Division Incident Report Committee, which meets about every two months, will review any incidents that are at least three months old, in order to ensure that there’s been enough time to investigate the incident, determine its root cause and complete any other necessary research. If the committee is unable to close the incident within three months of it coming to them, it will escalate the issue to the deputy administrator to resolve any lingering issues and close the incident report.

One example of an incident that might come before the committee for review is a decision by staff to take down, or safely restrain, a patient. Young said that in one of those takedown incidents that came before the committee, it was determined that staff had acted properly but didn’t feel comfortable in the takedown process, so more training was implemented.

The new policy also comes amid a time of change of leadership in the department. Eddie Ableser, Young’s predecessor, stepped down from his post the day the audit was presented, and the former Division of Public and Behavioral Health Administrator, Amy Roukie, resigned after it was revealed that she was untruthful to the legislative committee reviewing the audit.

In the wake of Roukie’s resignation, Deputy Director Julie Kotchevar took over as division administrator, and Young took over as deputy administrator of the Clinical Services Branch in February.

“With every new administration, I think you look at policies with a fresh eye,” Young said. “With each new administration, it’s important to get in there and look at the nuances of the policies and look at it to tweak or improve it.”

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