Daugaard says he'll call on private group to help HSC

Gov. Dennis Daugaard said Tuesday that he'll bring in a quality assurance officer from the private group he previously directed to monitor South Dakota's state-run mental health hospital.

Daugaard told Argus Leader Media reporters Tuesday that he asked a quality assurance leader at the Children's Home Society of South Dakota to step in to work with the Human Services Center's new administrator.

Daugaard previously worked as the Children's Home Society's executive director.

MORE:Previous Human Services Center coverage

“I asked Troy if he would be willing to have another set of eyes and he was very welcoming to that,” Daugaard said. “I think he’ll bring some quality assurance processes that will be different and new.”

The Republican governor said he met with the center's new administrator Troy Jones Tuesday in Pierre.

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Daugaard said the combination of Jones' leadership and additional accountability measures from the Children's Home Society will help improve problems at the center. And he hopes the two will collect clean and comparable data to help evaluate quality of work being done at the Yankton-based hospital.

The comments came after Argus Leader Media investigation uncovered high turnover and increasing patient on staff incidents at the facility. The investigation recently found that the hospital's death records didn't match the state death certificates. Another patient suicide and four accidental deaths that were considered to have occurred of natural causes were uncovered in the investigation.

"Certainly when you have any sort of incidents whether they be injuries or matters of concern for the joint commission or accreditation reviews, we want to address those. And we will continue to improve. Problems are opportunities to get better and he is going to make us better," Daugaard said of Jones.

Phyllis Arends, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Sioux Falls, supported the governor’s move to bring in outside help to evaluate the facility. Arends said having help from an organization with a proven background will bode well for improvement at the facility.

“I applaud him for taking that approach,” Arends said.

Sen. Bernie Hunhoff, D-Yankton, said the hire and efforts to improve the facility will be welcome by staff members there.

"The more, the better. I just hope that the consultants, Children’s Home Society staff and anyone else who comes to town will have the opportunity to talk at length with patient care staff who are on the front lines of providing mental health care in Yankton. They know the problems firsthand and they care very deeply about making the facility the best place it can be for South Dakota," Hunhoff said.

In response to reports of facility employees improperly restraining patients, Daugaard said the center should improve its reporting on the practices to ensure certain staff members aren't relying too heavily on the techniques.

"If we're looking at restraints or seclusion, we should be looking at data by unit, we should collect that data by patient, we should be collecting that data by the person who initiated the restraint or the seclusion," Daugaard said.

And Daugaard said the money distributed to the center from the state and federal funding isn't the problem.

When asked whether the center receives enough state funding he said, "Yes I do, unquestionably we do."

Follow Dana Ferguson on Twitter @bydanaferguson and Mark Walker @ArgusMWalker