Problems at King/Drew Called Unique

Surprise inspections earlier this month at four public hospitals in Los Angeles County turned up some problems but none as severe as those at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a national accrediting group said.

But the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations found enough lapses at one of the hospitals to warn that it might downgrade the hospital’s accreditation status, said the commission’s president, Dr. Dennis O’Leary. County health officials confirmed that the hospital is Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance.

After a series of lapses in patient care at King/Drew, some of which led to deaths, the organization decided to inspect all of the county’s hospitals. The commission wanted to see if King/Drew’s problems existed elsewhere in the county system.

“The kinds of things we identified at King/Drew caught my attention: the medication errors, the orders for blood transfusion not picked up, psychiatric patients in the emergency room for days,” O’Leary said Thursday at a forum at King/Drew.

“The others didn’t have these kinds of problems.”

Harbor-UCLA has an opportunity to contest the group’s findings before any action is taken.

Accreditation by the Joint Commission has enormous symbolic as well as practical significance for hospitals, affecting everything from public relations to funding.

Administrators at Harbor-UCLA believe the Joint Commission drew “conclusions that were not justified by their findings,” said Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county’s Department of Health Services.

The Joint Commission already has begun the process of pulling its seal of approval from King/Drew, jeopardizing doctor-training programs and insurance contracts. King/Drew will likely exhaust its appeal early next year, O’Leary said, and the decision is expected to become final.

None of the other county hospitals reviewed were threatened with sanctions, officials said. They are County-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar and Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey.

About 90 people crowded into an auditorium at King/Drew on Thursday to hear O’Leary explain his organization’s actions at a community meeting organized by U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Carson). Many community activists and hospital staff members have objected vigorously to recent sanctions and criticism of King/Drew.

“The hospital is losing ground,” O’Leary said.

Millender-McDonald pledged to be “in the face” of the commission or others who might be able to reverse the process.

But O’Leary told her and others to focus on the larger problems.

“Don’t worry about your accreditation,” he said. “Worry about fixing your hospital. Accreditation will follow.”

After the meeting, Millender-McDonald said O’Leary’s statement about the deficiencies at other hospitals should send a message to the county Board of Supervisors to “take note that problems lie in other than one hospital.”

The public meeting came just days before a private management company was expected to take control of day-to-day operations at King/Drew.

The county Board of Supervisors awarded Navigant Consulting Inc. a $13.2-million contract earlier this month to assess the problems at King/Drew and recommend improvements.

Times staff writer Charles Ornstein contributed to this report.