Oregon Department of Corrections pledges to overhaul prison health care

According to agency officials on Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Corrections intends to completely overhaul its problematic health services division in order to enhance staff working conditions and inmate health care.

The commitment follows years of poor administration in the institution that resulted in a poisonous work environment for medical staff and inadequate treatment for prisoners with a wide range of illnesses, including genital herpes, asthma, cancer, and traumatic brain injuries.

In December of last year, the state signed a $250,000 agreement with the Falcon Group, a prisons health care consulting business, to conduct a thorough evaluation of the agency’s delivery system, covering policies, procedures, and care quality.

According to the assessment, which was made public on Tuesday, the firm provided 67 findings and important suggestions to fix a level of care that it characterized as fragmented, unorganized, and inefficient. Priorities include:

Overhauling the internal panels of medical providers, called Therapeutic Level of Care Committees, who determine whether inmates can see outside specialists;

giving providers more discretion regarding referrals; and allowing a range of clinical requests to be referred to outside providers without committee approval.
Centralizing scheduling of such visits to address the backlog of needed outside medical trips and hiring more staff to transport inmates to appointments.
Prioritizing the implementation of an electronic health records system to organize paper health records that are currently sparse and fragmented, and, according to the report, are undermining safety and quality of care.
Establishing a Department of Innovation to oversee data collection, analysis, routine audits and performance improvement within Health Services.
Conducting a comprehensive staffing analysis and addressing

immediate staffing needs at specific prisons. The report pointed to staffing issues at

Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla

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and the Deer Ridge Correctional Institution in Madras.
Revising medical grievance procedures to promote rapid informal resolution with inmates and ensure clinicians respond to issues.
Exploring the feasibility of creating secure treatment units in off-site hospitals; establishing a neuro-cognitive unit or skilled nursing facility inside the prison system; and replacing the Oregon State Prison with a purpose-built health care facility.
Develop an internal and external plan to improve communications between the workforce and inmates, to convey the intention and progress toward improvements throughout the agency, and provide updates to legislative, media and community members.

A growing number of inmate lawsuits alleging inadequate care and willful indifference to their suffering have been filed against the organization, which manages health care for some 12,000 convicts across 12 prisons. The agency has paid millions of dollars in settlements. Staff departures, whistleblower complaints, and a 2024 study by a nonprofit organization with outside accreditation that detailed a 600-appointment backlog in medical care and other shortcomings in the care of women inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility have all occurred there.

Meanwhile, media inquiries have revealed long-standing issues within the unit. More than half of Oregon’s prison physicians were on paid administrative leave, had been fired, or had resigned within the previous year, according to a February analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

An outside investigator’s damning findings, which questioned the competence of the unit’s chief medical officer, Warren Roberts, and his boss, Joe Bugher, led to the agency firing its two top executives earlier this year.

In a news release on Tuesday, agency director Michael Reese stated that the department was dedicated to enhancing the effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of treatment for prisoners and that the report will be used as a strategic guide for setting priorities. Over the course of the following four months, the agency intends to evaluate the report and create an action plan that will be implemented under the new assistant director of health services.

One of the investigative team’s reporters is Ted Sickinger. You may contact him at ortsickinger@oregonian.com or 503-221-8505.