Date of Award

Spring 2-2-2024

Embargo Period

2-9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Health Administration

Department

Health Administration

College

College of Health Professions

First Advisor

Jillian Harvey

Second Advisor

Dean Doering

Third Advisor

Pauline Marcussen

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The role of prison healthcare is to provide safe, high-quality, and timely healthcare for prisoners. This study examines the characteristics of patients discharged from healthcare in the nation’s third-largest prison system, the state of Florida.

METHODS: This was a study of adults (18-64) admitted from or discharged to law enforcement agencies in Florida in 2018 for healthcare in Florida hospitals. Patients were divided among distinguishable characteristics of gender, zip code, income quartile, rural/urban locality, and insurance type. Data was collected within the Office of Data Collection & Quality Assurance (DCQA) within the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (Florida AHCA) and the data within the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). Financial data was also analyzed.

RESULTS: 20,491 encounters were analyzed, with the patients being 65.4% male and 34.6% female. 21% of the patients had Medicaid, while 12.5% were uninsured. 73% of patients were 5 admitted from law enforcement but discharged home, and 44.8% of patients were from the poorest zip code quartile. Nine of the top 10 admission diagnoses were for behavioral health.

CONCLUSIONS: The study found that Florida has some inequities within its prison healthcare system, with the majority of those patients who are incarcerated coming from zip codes in the poorest areas within the state.

Rights

Copyright is held by the author. All rights reserved.

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