With the same inter-agency collaboration and cooperation, the Board established Health Care Minimum Standards in 1991, which all participants viewed as a consensus document. The Health Care Standards require that the quality of services provided to prisoners be consistent with “accepted professional standards and sound professional judgment and practice”.

Key provisions include: prisoners must have access on weekdays to sick call within 24 hours of requesting it; medical intake screening must occur within 24 hours of entering DOC custody; and timely access to follow-up care and specialty clinics on-Island and in hospitals must be provided. Clinical and correctional personnel staffing levels in jail clinics, infirmaries and prison hospital wards must be adequate in numbers and types to ensure that all health care standards are met.

Both the Mental Health and Health Care Minimum Standards have been hailed as national models.