Making the grade for state licensure, Medicare certification and accreditation requires that health care organizations have well-prepared teams and processes for delivering high-quality care.
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HAMDEN, Conn., /PRNewswire/ -- Making the grade for state licensure, Medicare certification and accreditation requires that health care organizations have well-prepared teams and processes for delivering high-quality care. With so much riding on a credentialing survey, it's no wonder that home health and hospice providers and some private home care providers invest significant time and attention to ensure they demonstrate competency and compliance with regulations and standards. According to Kimberly Skehan, RN, MSN, HCS-D, COS-C, Director of Regulatory and Quality Consulting at Simione Healthcare Consultants, the dynamic of survey readiness is changing among trade associations, accrediting bodies and business consultants, who are urging providers to go beyond the idea of "getting ready" for survey and start thinking about working differently. "Agencies that make survey education a more frequent and ongoing exercise will facilitate an 'always ready' mindset," Skehan says. "We encourage providers to take a long-term approach to performance improvement, focus on developing reliability in home care and hospice, and maintain a constant state of readiness to transcend the 'ramp up, ramp down' mentality of the survey timetable." What is Survey Readiness? Simione Healthcare Consultants, in addition to accrediting bodies and national and state trade associations, plays a key role in educating and supporting home health and hospice providers regarding regulation and the adoption of Home Health and Hospice Conditions of Participation (CoPs) to ensure high-quality care. "Survey deficiencies have increased significantly in both home health and hospice, even for providers with no prior issues. From first-time survey to plan of correction and everything in between, providers may lack insight on patterns occurring during survey site visits. An independent assessment and educational resources can be beneficial to accelerate the process within an agency," says Skehan. "Thankfully, resources are plentiful." Survey Readiness = Ready for Growth "Even when you have a strong organization, you have to recognize when you need outside help to achieve new levels of performance. We had high aspirations for growing hospice, and survey readiness was a primary goal," Isom explains. "We wanted to maintain regulatory compliance and accreditation during significant changes in our organization that involved staffing, EMR training and subsequent plans to conduct quality, case management and supervisory training. Simione did a tremendous job, working side by side with our staff and building confidence through teamwork. Our experience greatly helped with retention, because team members said they felt engaged in the process that they had helped to improve." It's All About Education & Collaboration
"Whether single agency, multi-site and/or multi-state, providers need to prepare for increasing regulatory scrutiny. We strive to make sense of all the industry churn and crystallize all of the developments and changes into actionable work that promotes progress," says Skehan. For more information on survey readiness, read the full advisory. About Simione Healthcare Consultants Contact: Linda Wiseman View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/changing-the-survey-mindset-in-home-health--hospice-300708489.html SOURCE Simione Healthcare Consultants |
