On your marks, get set, sweat!

But hopefully not a Billy Idol kind of sweat…

Our friends in Chicago are once again tweaking the survey process, with the result being less time for surveyors to wait for organizations to muster their troops at the outset and pretty much no time at all before they are out and about doing tracers. Basically, what used to be the surveyor planning session in the morning of the first survey day is now being flipped and combined with the special issue resolution session at the end of the day. For organizations to adapt their process to the changes, folks should be prepared to do the following:

• Prompt alert of/to the leadership team of any on-site survey to facilitate their availability for a prompt opening conference (I can’t think of too many folks who are not already doing this)
• Prepare all required documentation and deliver those documents to the survey team immediately after the team is escorted to their “base” (the list of required documents is available in the Survey Activity Guide, although it begs the question as to whether this includes the life safety documentation…)
• Gather the scribes together so they are ready to hit the pavement as soon as the (ever-so-brief) opening conference is completed

Somehow I think this may all tie across with the folks from CMS accompanying the Joint Commission folks as part of the validation process—anyone who has dealt with a state and/or CMS survey will tell you, there’s not a lot of time (or indeed, inclination) for pleasantries. The job of being prickly requires a lot of inflexibility, which does seem to be the hallmark of the current survey process.

These changes to the survey process are effective March 2020.

About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Greeley Company in Danvers, Mass. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is also a contributing editor for Healthcare Safety Leader. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.