Codey Will Transform System?

The headline at NJPoliticker.com reads: “CODEY BILLS WOULD TRANSFORM PATIENT CARE AT STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS”

Explanation:

A package of bills sponsored by Senate President Richard J. Codey that are designed to protect patient safety and improve employee training and oversight at state psychiatric hospitals was approved yesterday by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. … Sen. Codey worked closely with the Public Advocate’s office in drafting these bills, in part, to address a number of injuries and deaths that had arisen recently at state facilities such as Ancora Psychiatric Hospital.
Bill S2492, would require the Department of Human Services (DHS) to establish a training program for staff members who work directly with patients at state psychiatric hospitals in order to ensure the delivery of safe, secure, and therapeutic care.  Utilizing best practices in patient treatment, the curriculum would include topics such as state and federal reporting requirements, patient safety, disease prevention, health wellness activities, anger management, skilled decision-making and how to deal effectively with life-threatening emergencies. … The bill would require DHS to establish an on-site educational assessment and remedial instruction program at each state psychiatric hospital in order to evaluate the proficiency of all staff members who work directly with patients.

The bill would also require the commissioner of DHS to establish minimum educational standards for staff members at a hospital who work or will work directly with patients. … Employees already working directly with patients at the time of the bill’s enactment would be required to undergo an evaluation to determine if they meet the educational standards or require remedial instruction through the on-site education program.Any employee that refuses to participate in the training program or fails to meet the educational standards and refuses to participate in remedial instruction, would be terminated from employment at the hospital. …

The second bill, S2493, would require current and future employees of state psychiatric hospitals, developmental centers and veterans’ memorial homes to undergo drug testing for controlled dangerous substances as a condition of employment.

The last bill in the package, S2494, would require DHS to report the number of physical assaults and deaths that occur at state psychiatric hospitals. The report would be a public record, posted on the official DHS website, and updated quarterly, but would not contain any identifying information about patients or staff members.

As a longtime fan of Sen. Codey’s commitment to mental health matters, I do think it’s a good move. But is it transformative? As an astute TTWS reader notes:

It’s hard to see how these three bills alone will transform patient care at New Jersey’s state psychiatric hospitals which includes Ancora, let alone insure the care long required by law, New Jersey Statutes Annotated 30:4-27.1(c), It is the policy of this State that persons in the public mental health system receive inpatient treatment and rehabilitation services in accordance with the highest professional standards and which will enable those hospitalized persons to return to their community as soon as it is clinically appropriate.

Too often words and deeds fail to intersect at our nation’s psychiatric hospitals. Transform and its variants are now used so frequently that any change is considered transformative. More recently at another New Jersey state psychiatric hospital where a new building was going to lead to transformation (click here, paragraph 5), the reality belied the representations, ex. Developing therapeutic alliances between patients and staff remains a challenge, with differences in race, ethnicity, social class and education creating a ‘them versus us’ scenario.

“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” Humpty Dumpty

liz | 1:05 PM | DISABILITY, SCHIZOPHRENIA, bipolar disorder, depression, hospitals / hospitalization, media, meds, politics