Quality Assessment and Oversight in California State Prisons
Amend at UCSF Report
In December 2017, the California Prison Health Care Receivership Corporation (CPR) engaged Amend at UCSF to conduct an independent assessment of specified California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) medical systems and processes with the goals of:
- Assessing whether those CCHCS systems conform to community standard policy and practice in federal and/or California state (“community”) integrated healthcare systems; and
- Developing recommendations to optimize those CCHCS systems in view of our findings
This report—completed on July 1, 2024—aims to draw upon lessons from community and correctional healthcare settings to provide an analysis of two foundational questions:
- How should healthcare quality be assessed in California state prisons?
- How might external approaches to healthcare system oversight be used to inform plans for healthcare oversight following conclusion of the federal receivership?
Given the critical importance and breadth of these questions, this report should be considered a scoping review that describes the current landscape relevant to these two questions, makes a number of specific recommendations, and lays the foundation for subsequent investigation into remaining unanswered questions regarding healthcare quality assessment and oversight of CCHCS.
Amend at UCSF will produce a series of follow-up reports in the coming 1-2 years that provide additional, multi-stakeholder recommendations for how a robust and effective system of prison healthcare oversight should be structured. It is our goal that answering these questions can help CCHCS and other systems create durable, strong healthcare systems that are steeped in a culture of quality, self-reflection and transparency.
Amend at UCSF’s full report can be viewed here.