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In one case examined by investigators, a patient with a history of suicide attempts and homicidal ideation arrived reporting hallucinations and told staff he could not control his urge to hurt people. He was approved for inpatient admission but waited more than two days in the emergency department for a bed. Despite orders calling for him to receive close supervision, the man left before he could be transferred.<\/p>\n
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In another case, a teenager initially cleared for discharge was later found to need inpatient care after staff contacted his mother and learned he was at high risk for suicide or violence. Because no safety precautions had been put in place, he left the hospital within minutes.<\/p>\n
A third incident involved a young man brought in by EMS and police after attacking a bystander. Staff allegedly never reviewed the ambulance report documenting the incident and did not fully assess the risk he posed. He fled the emergency department, and the hospital did not notify law enforcement until the next day.<\/p>\n
Beyond the emergency department failures, investigators found that NewYork-Presbyterian\u00a0had not restored all of its licensed psychiatric beds after the pandemic. As of May 2023, more than 100 beds remained closed across the system, even though state regulators had directed hospitals to bring that capacity back online.<\/p>\n
Under the settlement,\u00a0NYP must strengthen screening for suicide, violence and substance use in its emergency departments and establish mandatory observation protocols. The hospital must upgrade its electronic health records so providers have real-time access to patient information, and improve coordination with families and community care teams before making discharge decisions.<\/p>\n
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NewYork-Presbyterian must also track and review every elopement incident and ensure patients leave with scheduled follow-up appointments and connections to ongoing services. The hospital will face continued monitoring by the attorney general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
James secured $500,000 from the hospital system and will impose a penalty of $10,000 for each future violation of the settlement terms.<\/p>\n
In a statement,\u00a0NewYork-Presbyterian said it has worked to address shortfalls since 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cProviding safe, high-quality care for patients with complex behavioral and medical health needs is a priority,\u201d the hospital said in an email. \u201cSince 2022 we have continued to strengthen policies and workflows, expand mental health capacity with inpatient beds and outpatient services, and improve safety \u2014 improvements that the attorney general\u2019s findings acknowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The hospital said it is \u201cproud to have one of the largest behavioral health footprints of any multi-campus hospital in New York\u201d and remains committed to continuous improvement.<\/p>\n
Glenn\u00a0Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, called the settlement \u201can important reminder of the ongoing need for strong oversight and enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The settlement is the latest in a series of actions by James targeting gaps in New York\u2019s mental health system, including a similar agreement with\u00a0WMCHealth<\/a> over psychiatric care failures in the Hudson Valley last year.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital requiring sweeping reforms to its emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,194942,554,555,1767,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-379295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-latestnews","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-mentalhealth","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}