2023 Indian Health Service recommendations update – new fact sheet
News Release
Indian Health Service
Between 2019 and 2021, the Indian Health Service received recommendations from IHS-commissioned internal reviews and external entities on the design and implementation of IHS policies and processes established to protect patients and to hold employees accountable for compliance. The Indian Health Service concurred with Office of Inspector General and U.S. Government Accountability Office recommendations and submitted plans for corrective actions. In 2021, IHS developed an action plan to meet the GAO’s criteria for being removed from their high-risk list, which IHS was placed on in 2017. The IHS also initiated strategies to address prior recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on Protecting Native American Children in the Indian Health Service System. In November 2021, the Director’s Policy Advisory Council was charged by the acting IHS director at that time to review all recommendations related to patient protection to ensure a centralized and cohesive understanding of the agency’s progress, which would help guide on-going agency actions.
In January, Indian Health Service leadership implemented the 2023 Agency Work Plan, which aims to address these recommendations. The work plan outlines critical priorities that will guide agency improvements over the next year and complements ongoing activities to improve patient safety and provide critical oversight of our programs. Through the work plan, IHS leadership is leveraging the work of the DPAC to ensure all recommendations are addressed, accountable staff are assigned and completing work on open recommendations, and actions are continuously tracked and monitored to sustain improvements. IHS will provide quarterly updates on the progress of the recommendations through the IHS Recommendations Status Report.
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Read more in our new fact sheet.
