CMS has placed the Indian Health Service hospital on the Rosebud (S.D.) Sioux Indian Reservation on "immediate jeopardy" status and will terminate the hospital's Medicare provider agreement Aug. 30 unless the deficiencies are corrected.
Here are five things to know:
1. CMS discovered the issues during a surveyof the hospital in late July. The incidents that led to the "immediate jeopardy" status were detailed in a report released Aug. 17, according to The Wall Street Journal.
2. In one incident, a 12-year-old girl reportedly attempted to strangle herself with a call-light cord and shoe laces after she was left alone in a closed room for 20 minutes. She had previously been asking to see her dead father and was despondent. CMS regulators said hospital staff failed to follow proper procedures.
3. CMS said hospital staff failed to follow proper restraint and emergency procedures when restraining a mentally disturbed man. The 35-year-old patient died of cardiac arrest the day after he was improperly restrained, according to WSJ.
4. In a statement to WSJ, IHS said it had made "measurable improvements" at the Rosebud hospital and presented a correction plan to CMS.
5. This is the second time in recent years CMS has threatened to revoke the hospital's Medicare billing privileges. In 2015, inspectors found employees hand-washed surgical instruments after a sterilizer broke, failed to communicate that a patient had untreated tuberculosis, and did not monitor a patient who delivered a baby prematurely on a bathroom floor. The IHS closed the hospital's emergency room in 2016. Although health service officials tried to improve care at the facility and later reopened the ED, they shuttered the facility's surgical and OB-GYN units.
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