AP NewsBreak: Feds Outline Reforms for Reservation Hospitals

By REGINA GARCIA CANO, ASSOCIATED PRESS SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Feb 3, 2016, 11:59 AM ET

Federal officials on Wednesday outlined a plan to improve care at hospitals that treat Native Americans in four Great Plains states, including creating a multi-agency group to focus on quality and patient safety and designating a single organization to accredit Indian Health Service hospitals.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services detailed the steps to The Associated Press ahead of a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday afternoon in Washington that'll discuss the quality of care at IHS hospitals in the region.

The hearing and promised reforms come weeks after federal inspections highlighted serious problems on a pair of hospitals on South Dakota reservations and months after inspectors uncovered inadequate care for a man who died of kidney failure two days after seeking care from a hospital in Nebraska.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell is establishing a group that will include leaders from IHS — which administers the hospitals that provide free care for Native Americans — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies. The group will address persistent staffing shortages and develop policy and training proposals to "bolster the safety culture," HHS said, as well as provide immediate assistance to hospitals in need, focusing first on the Great Plains region of the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska.

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