SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- The Youth and Adult Correctional Agency (YACA), the state’s Chief Information Officer, and the U.S. Veterans Administration have marked the completion of the first “proof of concept” phase for its Health Care Management System (HCMS) at a ceremony at the California Medical Facility (CMF) in Vacaville.
The project goals are to develop and implement an integrated pharmacy/clinical management system that meets the regulatory requirements for medication management and meets currently accepted standards of clinical practice and oversight. It also provides clinical services to parolees.
“We are celebrating and recognizing today the efforts of a collaboration that will provide improved medical care for our inmates, wards and parolees,” said YACA Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman.
“This project was done the way IT should be done,” said California’s Chief Information Officer Clark Kelso. “The project team identified their business and medical needs, compared the system design to similar systems used in the best public and private sector facilities, kept the project simple and focused, and completed Phase I in under nine months. Anyone who thinks that state government can’t do IT should take a look at this project.”
The HCMS project uses the Veterans’ Administration Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VISTA). VISTA is an integrated health care management system used by the federal VA system and others. VISTA will be linked with the Case Management System for Corrections (CMS-C), a clinical management tool developed at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville (CMF), and the Transitional Case Management Program for the Mentally Ill (TCMP-MI), a program the Parole and Community Services Division developed to assist with transitioning mentally ill inmates to parole. The integration of these three systems will provide health care staff as well as department and institutions management with more complete medication and clinical management information. Other technology solutions are also being explored, including automated medication dispensing machines and the possibility of using wireless technology.
It will be implemented in three phases. The first phase began with the CMF “proof of concept,” that provides a controlled setting to develop and fine-tune the system. CMF has a complex health care delivery system mission, and it provided an excellent site to develop the system.
The second phase will implement the program at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione and Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy as well as in the N.A. Chadjerian and Dewitt Nelson California Youth Authority facilities in Stockton. This phase will provide an expanded setting to test the system in a networked environment. The third phase will be to implement the program statewide.
The projected cost for the first two phases is $1 million, and $10 million for the final phase. Cost savings are projected based on increased efficiencies as well as better inventory control in pharmacies.
“The success of this pilot will give momentum to the rest of the project,” said Kelso. “We all want to move quickly, to improve services, save costs, and respond to Governor Schwarzenegger’s call for action and change.”
Youth and Adult Correctional Agency
CONTACT: J.P. Tremblay, +1-916-323-6001, for Youth and AdultCorrectional Agency