An court-appointed monitor is warning Calais (Maine) Regional Hospital about implementing belt-tightening moves that could compromise the quality of patient care, according to The Bangor Daily News.
The monitor, Jeffrey Brown, was appointed by a bankruptcy court to ensure that quality standards at the facility are met despite its financial challenges.
In his 10-page report, Mr. Brown identified several issues at the hospital, including time-consuming billing mistakes, delays for patients seeking breast cancer screenings and poor communication between hospital staff and leaders.
He noted the hiring of a quality management director and new procedures for vetting and training contract workers as steps to improve issues raised by regulators in the last year.
But Mr. Brown warned leaders to protect against slips in quality in its attempts to save money, particularly when it comes to cutting staff.
The hospital previously announced plans to lay off 10 percent of its workforce and changed its emergency room physician staffing firm to go with one that had a lower rate.
"It is important to note that conditions that may compromise patient care quality and safety can arise quickly and insidiously as an unintended consequence of changes, e.g., in staffing, technologies, processes, clinical environments, or organizational structure," Mr. Brown wrote, according to the Bangor Daily News. "This is true for any hospital, large or small, but it is a heightened concern in hospitals that are struggling financially, and which must consider the risk-trade-offs of belt-tightening and quickly detect and mitigate any deleterious effects of change."
DeeDee Travis, a spokesperson for the hospital, told the Bangor Daily News that Mr. Brown's report found that care quality "has not declined significantly, nor been materially compromised based on documents reviewed, on-site observation and information elicited during interviews."