NCJ Number
202809
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 65 Issue: 6 Dated: October 2003 Pages: 76-77,83
Date Published
October 2003
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on achieving and maintaining quality correctional health care.
Abstract
Quality is often a hard concept to operationalize and define. Quality can be achieved by heath care professionals in the corrections setting by offering health care in an organized and systematic manner. Health care in the correctional setting is often provided by a controlled managed-care environment by medical, nursing, and auxiliary staff. This article presents the framework of the correctional health care quality management system as specified by the American Correctional Association (ACA). The ACA’s standards detail that corrections facilities should maintain a multidisciplinary team of corrections professionals and/or correctional health care professionals, monitor the health care program’s performance outcome measures, review the circumstances of all offender deaths in custody, maintain a corrective plan of action, re-evaluate problems and internal reviews, maintain effective documentation, and prepare quarterly reports. Correctional health care reviews may effectively specify problem areas and the root causes of these problems. Quality management in correctional health care should be the objective of every correctional institution.