Alright everyone. This module is going to focus on accreditation and a couple of
different regulatory compliance issues that we may see out in the workforce. So
let's start with just what is accreditation, what does that mean?
And most facilities out in the health care field are going to be seeking
some type of accreditation and what accreditation really says to the
outsider looking in is that this facility you know abides and meets by
certain rules and regulations and it meets certain quality indicators that
have been set out. So they really have to be some incentives in place too on the
healthcare facility side for the facilities to want to go out and seek
accreditation and one of the main ones that's going to be noted out there
is - reimbursement. Your reimbursement structure as a facility is oftentimes
going to be affected by your accreditation status or not. What
you're going to see most facilities go out and try to achieve is Joint
Commission accreditation and we're going to talk about that throughout the lecture
today.
Now I've got a video here that does go over Joint Commission. I'm not going to
play it within the context of this lecture slide but you do have access to
it. If you'll go in and watch it's just a short little video just a couple minutes
long and then come back we'll finish going through the rest of the slides.
So you can see from an accreditation standpoint, particularly around acute
care facilities like hospitals, we have a lot of different metrics that we're
going to try and hit as a facility. So we have to, you know be cognizant of
everything listed here on this slide. One thing I want to point out - life safety
measures. Now this is one I get asked a lot - what is that really? Health
care facilities do have to be very cognizant of, you know, do they have the
right amount of sprinklers installed, is everything compliant with the American
Disabilities Act, things like that. So you can see we have a lot of different
metrics that we're trying to hit as healthcare facilities and you can
imagine how large these regulation books come. I think the last life safety
regulation book that came out was probably about four inches thick. So they
do get pretty tenuous and pretty lengthy to work with. So in terms of long
term care facilities, they operate in terms of accreditation just a little
bit differently than the acute care setting. In acute care, we're typically
going after Joint Commission accreditation. In long-term care
facilities Joint Commission accreditation is available but you don't
find many LTC's going after Joint Commission. It's not very common or very
typical. Long-term care facilities usually obtain their accreditation
through state agencies through their surveys who have been granted
authority by CMS. So the state agency will come in do their survey and that'll
satisfy the requirements for CMS.
So the survey process if you have been through one, you know I'd really
like to hear about your experience, if you haven't just wait till you go
through your first survey experience when you get out to start working.
They can be very stressful because they are so comprehensive. We're
looking at every nook and cranny under every piece of paper. The surveys get
very very lengthy and very very comprehensive because what we're looking
to see, you know keeping the patient in the forefront of all of this. What we're
looking to see is has the health care facility followed all of their outline
processes and procedures. Are they pretty much doing what they're say they're
doing? The on-site survey process can be a little stressful.
So one last thing to note. Make sure that you know what this term "Deemed Status"
means. The definitions right there. It means payment for providing
health care services under Medicare Medicaid insurance programs. And what
that, you know, what that is generally saying is that CMS, as an organization,
will allow the Joint Commission to essentially take their place in terms of
this surveying process and that CMS because the Joint Commission comes in
and does their survey and accreditation CMS is not going to come in and survey
in the acute care setting anyway. Now that it is a little different for
long-term care as we discussed a couple of slides ago. Guys this was a
really short one so if you have any questions let me know but we're going to
go ahead end here. Make sure to go back and watch that video and again if
you have any questions just let me know.