The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care released a new toolkit that aims to help healthcare organizations implement and evaluate patient testing and referral systems to improve care coordination.
Here's what you should know:
1. Tracking diagnostic tests and referrals is essential to improve patient outcomes.
2. Patients treated in the ASC space are more frequently presenting with comorbidities, while also having multiple providers.
3. Tracking tests and referrals are a care coordination measure under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. Eliminating gaps in referral tracking is a quality measure in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System program.
4. AAAHC Institute Vice President and Senior Director Naomi Kuznets, PhD, said in a release, "The AAAHC toolkit offers a self-assessment for organizations to conduct on new or existing systems for tracking tests and/or referrals. If an organization fails to comply with an item from the checklists, a potential gap in the coordination of care is recognized and should be remedied through quality improvement interventions."