Review the latest recommendations for controlling methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as MRSA, with your infection prevention and control team as well as your medical staff leadership.
A new CMS Quality, Safety & Oversight group memo on suicide prevention urges hospitals to go above and beyond to help protect patients from themselves. Accrediting organizations like ACHC and TJC cite resources and offer tools to help.
CMS is worried that hospitals have too much advance notice of when surveyors will be on the premises to audit patient safety practices and identify problems, including those found while investigating patient complaints.
Keep required documents up to date and ready for surveyors, and have someone within the hospital leadership team available to come in on short notice once your hospital is within six months of its triennial survey date.
Brush up on discharge procedures and requirements, and review communication with post-acute care (PAC) providers, CMS says, including discharges to home health care.
Have a plan of action to correct as many deficiencies as possible before the survey team leaves your facility, recommends a compliance manager at a Midwest hospital that was surveyed earlier this spring.
As in past years, CMS is concerned about the number and severity of deficiencies found by accrediting organizations (AO) compared to those found during CMS validation surveys at the same hospitals shortly thereafter.
Expect accrediting organizations (AO) to focus more on the physical environment, patient rights, infection control, governing body leadership, and anesthesia services. And also expect more condition-level findings.
