KING COUNTY, WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, November 29th, the King County Ombudsman's Office issued a report about jail health pharmacy. We share the Ombudsman's Office commitment and concern for the welfare of the people who are in the jail's custody, and we appreciate their important role in supporting inmates to receive the quality care that they need.

At the same time, we are very concerned about the report, and take exception to several of its findings. We are committed to openly working with the Ombudsman's Office, the King County Executive and King County Council members to answer their questions and provide a fuller understanding of our operations, the quality of our work on behalf of patients and the significant progress we have made.

We have a medically sound health care delivery system in our jails, making health care available to nearly 55,000 inmates each year. We were recently re-accredited by the nationally-recognized National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) for compliance with NCCHC Standards for Health Care Services in Jails. This accreditation means the jail has met national operational standards, including for pharmacy operations, as determined by a panel of independent nurse and physician auditors. As of 2005, out of more than 1,600 jails nationwide, only 242 had received NCCHC accreditation.

The Ombudsman's report expressed concern that they had received about 70 complaints regarding medications per year since 2004. To put this information in context, we issued 153,192 new or refill prescriptions in 2005, or nearly 3,000 per week. This is a complaint rate of 0.045% of the total prescriptions issued in a year. Every complaint we do receive from the Ombudsman's Office is investigated to its resolution. While some do lead to corrections in care, many are not substantiated upon further investigation.

The most concerning element of the Ombudsman's report is its reliance on a November 2006 report issued by the Board of Pharmacy on our Jail Health pharmacy services at the Regional Justice Center. We take these inspection reports very seriously and use the data in them to continuously improve our pharmacy services.

While we did receive a passing grade, we take issue with many findings and statements in this report, including inaccuracies, incomplete information and a lack of clarity on standards for correctional health facilities. We have submitted to the Board of Pharmacy a detailed rebuttal to the report.

We take medical errors in the jail very seriously. While mistakes are a part of every health care setting, it makes them no easier for us to accept. We continually improve our care for patients by aggressively monitoring our practices and responding to problems through a strong quality assurance and improvement program.

» More information on how inmate health concerns are addressed

Providing effective and innovative health and disease prevention services for over 1.8 million residents and visitors of King County, Public Health – Seattle & King County works for safer and healthier communities for everyone, every day.

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