Issue 9: Due to Its Unusual Structure and Function, the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee Should Be Allowed to Continue, Removed from Sunset Review.
Summary
Key Recommendations
· Remove the separate Sunset date and continue the Committee.
· Update the statutory direction for the Committee.
· Require the Chair of the Committee to be a public physician member.
· Remove limitations on TDCJ’s ability to monitor the quality of health care provided to offenders.
Key Findings
· Texas has a continuing need for professional healthcare providers to make healthcare decisions for incarcerated offenders in a secure prison environment.
· The arrangement between TDCJ and the universities for providing offender health care does not lend itself to objective analysis of whether or not the Committee should be continued.
· The Committee’s statutory responsibilities need updating to better reflect its actual purpose.
· Because the Board of Criminal Justice relies on the Committee to oversee prison health care, it is too far removed from its responsibility to ensure offenders receive a constitutional level of health care.
Conclusion
Texas benefits from the contractual relationship between the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and two public universities, the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (Texas Tech), for the provision of offender healthcare services. However, this relationship is not a typical contractual relationship and the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee (the Committee), as the facilitator between the parties, is not a typical stand-alone state agency. TDCJ and the two universities favor the current approach.
While Sunset staff could not justify continuing the Committee as a separate agency, staff also could not identify problems that would be fixed by abolishing it. Staff concluded the Committee should be allowed to continue but removed from Sunset review, with its statutory responsibilities clarified. Also, limitations on TDCJ’s ability to monitor health care should be removed so that the agency will be better able to carry out its responsibility of ensuring the well-being of offenders.