Hospital's Accreditation Drops to Provisional

Greater Southeast Community Hospital was downgraded yesterday to a provisional accreditation by the independent organization that inspects U.S. health-care programs.

The move by the Joint Commission, triggered when Greater Southeast failed last week to submit a required annual review, is yet another indication of the 110-bed facility's daunting challenges.

On Monday, hospital administrators gave the D.C. Health Department a 35-page plan to correct numerous deficiencies in staffing, supplies and equipment. City regulators, pushed by D.C. Council Health Committee Chairman David A. Catania (I-At Large) and reports of rapidly deteriorating conditions, have recently ramped up scrutiny and demanded improvements.

Health Department spokeswoman Leila Abrar said regulators were going over the plan. She declined to release a copy until they finish their assessment.

Chief Executive Cyril Allen said Greater Southeast had missed its deadline with the Joint Commission because of all the issues confronting the hospital. "It was just an oversight," Allen said yesterday.

He said the performance review will be completed and forwarded within 10 days, well before the next deadline that could further drop the facility's accreditation status. The review forces a hospital to evaluate its compliance with 250 standards and remedy any areas that are out of compliance.

The Chicago-based organization has taken action against Greater Southeast in the past.

In 2002, it listed the hospital's accreditation as conditional, based on violations of 11 patient-care and management standards. The next year, it threatened the hospital with total accreditation loss because of serious patient-care problems, including blood transfusion errors and poor screening of workers and physicians.