Maryland is finding that utilizing telehealth services leads to savings in inmate transportation costs, while improving public safety and inmates’ clinical care, and Wexford Health is leading the way.

Government Technology reports:

Wexford has been involved in telemedicine for more than seven years, said Thomas Lehman, M.D., the company’s corporate medical director, and handled 12,000 telemedicine visits last year. He said Maryland is not alone in expressing increased interest in expanding its use. “When we look at the new bids and proposals, all corrections departments across the country are now interested, not only from the aspect of public safety and decreasing overtime costs, but also of delivering good care and access to specialists for inmate patients.”

Read more at GovTech.com.

In Yavapai County (Arizona), Wexford Health’s Restoration to Competency program (RTC) has returned a significant amount of enrolled inmates to sufficient mental competency to stand trial. Previously, inmates were transported to the Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix, which was both expensive and time-consuming.

Inmates are referred to the RTC program by the Superior Court. By law, they have 15 months to successfully complete RTC. In the county’s version of the RTC, inmates have been found to spend as much as 65 percent less time enrolled – an average of 63 days – before they finish treatment than they did when they were sent to the Arizona State Hospital.

Read more at the Daily Courier.

In partnership with Wexford Health’s mental health program, local artist and teacher Anne Dennis created a unique art class at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility which helped female inmates.

Davis helps inmates to create artworks that express why they are in prison and what they have learned while they are there. Their hope was that public visitors to the “Despair to Destiny” exhibit would help people to avoid repeating the mistakes that put them in prison.

Wexford Health’s program is designed to help inmates change and improve the way they reason and come to decisions. Learning to create art helps them to express and heal the pain they feel as they go through the program.

Our innovative Restoration to Competency Program provides mental health care services to criminal defendants who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial, allowing the judicial process to move forward. Our success was recognized nationally in 2014, receiving the rare honor of three different national awards, including the Innovation in Corrections Award from the American Correctional Association.

The Restoration to Competency program has been a tremendous success for everyone involved, and we are honored that it’s been recognized by so many prestigious national organizations. It’s a great program that transforms correctional mental health care by improving lives, advancing the justice system, and saving taxpayer dollars.

– Daniel Conn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wexford Health Sources.

Read more at BusinesssWire.com.

In 2009, Mark Hale, president and CEO of Wexford Health Sources Inc., which contracts medical services to all of Mississippi’s state-run corrections operations, pledged to certify Mississippi’s health care staff. Plans for this initiative began early in 2008, when staff from Wexford, the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and the American Correctional Association began discussions about administering the nurse and nurse manager certification exams to the Wexford nurses employed at three facilities across the state.

ACA’s CCN and CCN/M programs offer nurses who work in corrections a unique opportunity to test their knowledge and skills in the specialty area of correctional nursing. Candidates qualify for the exam on the basis of their education and work experience. CCN candidates are line nurses in staff positions that do not require them to supervise other staff. They must be either a registered nurse, a licensed practical nurse or a licensed vocational nurse and have one year of correctional nursing experience in their current position. CCN/M candidates need to have an RN license in good standing with their state nursing board, and either an associate, bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing or a three-year nursing diploma.

Wexford provided study materials for their candidates and gave them two to three months to prepare for the exam. The resource materials, as well as the exams, cover the following topics: conflict management, health care, legal issues, mental health, nursing practice, offender management/general information, security/environment, standards/accreditation and the American Nursing Association’s Corrections Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice.

(Excerpted from Corrections Today)

Wexford Health is working with the Indiana Department of Corrections to provide medically-assisted treatment or MAT programs, thereby giving more inmates access to addiction recovery treatment while in prison.

When the Department of Corrections found that 60% of males entering prison have substance abuse issues, with the majority of those individuals also having problem behaviors associated with substance abuse, they worked with Wexford Health to explore treatment options. The MAT program offers options like medication that blocks the effects of alcohol and opiates.

Read more at WANE.com.

The term “disruptive technology” refers to innovations that displace established technologies, sometimes creating entirely new industries.  Past examples include the automobile replacing the horse and carriage, or the rise of computers fundamentally changing the way we live. In the present disruptive technologies are transforming the way citizens and government relate to each other.

Government Technology reports:

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which cares for 22,000 inmates in 27 facilities, including the Baltimore city jail, was spending $5 million to $6 million annually in transport and overtime pay to take prisoners to off-site clinics. It recently made a significant investment in telehealth equipment in partnership with its private-sector partner, Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources Inc. Dr. Thomas Lehman, Wexford’s corporate medical director, said Maryland is not alone in expressing interest in expanding the equipment’s use. “When we look at the new bids and proposals, all corrections departments across the country are now interested, not only from the aspect of public safety and decreasing overtime costs, but also of delivering good care and access to specialists for inmate patients.”

Read more at GovTech.com.

With the help of Wexford Health, the West Virginia State Division of Corrections has saved more than $1 million in medical treatment for inmates over the course of the year.

The Division has also saved money on its medical contract with Wexford Health Services, which previously paid for all inmate hospitalizations up to $5,000 per inmate per year, (Debbie Hissom, health services administrator for the Division of Corrections) said. Quantifying how much the Division saved on the contract is difficult.

Read more at the Charleston Gazette-Mail.