CMS found Asheville, N.C.-based HCA Mission Hospital in compliance with its plan of correction and recommended removing the immediate jeopardy designation, Blue Ridge Public Radio reported Feb. 23.
The hospital's plan of correction to address serious deficiencies it was cited for in January focuses on improving policies and educating staff. Among the changes are ensuring patients are triaged and assigned a nurse within 10 minutes of emergency department arrival and having lab results returned within 30 minutes. Those changes are related to deficiencies CMS identified in its recent report detailing what led to the immediate jeopardy sanction, including long wait times, delays in lab work and other issues that allegedly led to the deaths of four patients, according to documents obtained by the Asheville Watchdog.
A failure to address the issues cited by CMS would have resulted in a loss of Medicaid and Medicare funding for the hospital.
"We are pleased that the state surveyors found Mission Health to be in compliance with the corrective action plan previously accepted by CMS, and who are recommending removal of the immediate jeopardy," Nancy Lindell, a hospital spokesperson, told Blue Ridge Public Radio. "We appreciate the expertise of all the surveyors present this week who took the time to thoroughly review our compliance."
However, a group of physicians and patient advocates have criticized the plan of corrections for not including an increase in staff. In a letter to Mark Benton, chief deputy secretary for health at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, seven physicians and three patient advocates called the plan "insufficient" and urged regulators to request staffing information from the hospital and assign a third party to monitor the hospital's execution of the correction plan. They say the plan offers "only bureaucratic solutions to what is fundamentally a workforce issue."
The hospital has not said whether it will hire more staff. Ms. Lindell told Becker's, "We are pleased that CMS accepted our Plan of Correction and we will continue to collaborate with the surveyors through this process."