The jail doesn’t deal well with mortality

According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care’s Mortality Report regarding the many deaths at our jail, “Allegheny County does not do mortality reviews.” A mortality review is an assessment of the “clinical care provided and the circumstances leading up to the death.” To reach a standard of impartiality, NCCHC recommends, the review “be conducted by a unit physician not involved in the patient’s treatment, a central office or corporate physician or outside medical group”.

How is the jail going to learn about preventing deaths if they don’t do mortality reviews? Who should actually conduct the clinical mortality reviews?

The NCCHC report also stated, “Staff, including line supervisors, indicated they don’t hear information on critical incidents, specifically deaths and suicides, or follow up or corrective information.” Even if the jail administration did mortality reports, there is still a question concerning whether line supervisors and staff who need to know this corrective information would be informed.

The Jail Oversight Board will soon be hiring a “liaison” who will investigate the jail on behalf of the JOB. An innovative policy would be for the liaison or a board member to attend all these mortality reviews, make sure they are done and that the review reaches a standard of impartiality. This practice will bring the JOB into directly involvement with the jail, so they can work together to initiate policies and practices to prevent further deaths. JOHN KENSTOWICZ

Morningside