Editor's Note The Joint Commission on December 6 announced that revisions are continuing to be made to the Life Safety (LS) and Environment of Care (EC) chapters of its accreditation manuals. The revisions are a result of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ adoption of the 2012 editions of…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on November 29 announced a new software tool, “Tracers with AMPTM plus CMS,” to help hospitals and critical access hospitals manage their Joint Commission accreditation and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) compliance efforts. The tool is a web-based platform that stores a hospital’s…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a new requirement, effective immediately, that a hospital must have at least two active inpatients at the time of survey, or the survey/resurvey will not be allowed to continue, the Joint Commission reported November 15. The new requirement…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission has selected Chicago-based Apervita’s platform to enable thousands of hospitals with ORYX data reporting requirement to directly submit electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) data in 2018, the November 14 Healthcare Informatics reports. Since the shift to eCQM data submission began 2 years ago, the Joint…

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Peer review is a hot topic in the quality arena as many ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) strive to create meaningful and sustainable evaluation of their providers. “As a surveyor, I can tell you peer review trips everybody up,” says Ann Geier, MS, RN, CNOR, CASC, chief nursing officer of Surgical…

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Editor's Note Despite the expansion of requirements for electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) reporting to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an increased number of Joint Commission accredited hospitals are adopting and reporting eCQMs to drive quality improvement, the Joint Commission reports.  In 2016, 470 accredited hospitals submitted eCQM…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced November 1 that it is redesigning its Accreditation and Certification reports to be more user-friendly.  The redesigned reports will highlight the most relevant information about surveys and reviews, outcomes, and required follow-ups. Additional changes include: removing unnecessary white space and repetitive text prioritizing and grouping…

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Editor's Note The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAHC) announced on November 2 that it has developed a new Orthopaedic Certification program for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). After an ASC achieves overall accreditation, it can acquire the Orthopaedic Certification to demonstrate excellence in the specialty of orthopaedics by meeting…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission has abandoned proposed amendments to its accreditation standards that would have required healthcare systems to obtain patient consent, confirm patient location, and predict a patient’s financial responsibility before providing telehealth services, the October 11 mHealth Intelligence reports. The changes, which would have amended two existing…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on October 4 announced that Phase 4 of the EP [elements of performance] Review Project has begun, with EPs across all accreditation programs being evaluated for streamlining and consolidation. Revisions from the first part of Phase 4 will take effect January 1, 2018. Consolidation is…

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