Inland Hospital is committed to a culture of transparency. With that in mind, we wanted the community to hear from us that there is a possibility the hospital will be cited for violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law that seeks to ensure appropriate treatment for emergency department patients.
The State of Maine has told us that the issue centers around an emergency department patient who was transferred to another facility. We expect to receive more details about this issue in the coming days and we will keep you informed.
Please know we take this situation very seriously. We pledge to cooperate completely with state and federal officials to discover the facts and take any appropriate remedial steps to correct the matter if needed.
Meanwhile, we expect to be surveyed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the next week or so. Having recently received full accreditation by the American Osteopathic Association we are confident we will do well in the CMS survey.
~February 5, 2010