The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care Institute for Quality Improvement's Naomi Kuznets, PhD, and Belle Lerner discussed results of the AAAHC Quality Roadmap 2018 with Becker's ASC Review.
Here are tips and takeaways they shared:
Note: Responses were lightly edited for style.
Question: What were the most interesting findings in this year's report?
Dr. Naomi Kuznets & Belle Lerner: We are very happy to see improvement in compliance with several standards — this is what we want to see and what we find most interesting.
Q: What have ASCs improved upon since the 2017 report?
NK & BL: Overall, organizations are demonstrating improvement with conducting quality improvement studies (5.I.C) and documenting allergies and untoward drug reactions in the patient's clinical record (6.F/6.D.9). Where have they continued to struggle? We continue to see that facilities have challenges with quality improvement activities, safe injection practices, credentialing and privileging and documentation management.
Q: How can ASCs best use these findings to improve care quality?
NK & BL: Using the AAAHC Quality Roadmap 2018 results, ASCs can compare their internal findings with other similar organizations. The report presents [actionable] data, findings which can be discussed and used to drive decision-making on quality improvement and/or corrective actions. The report includes surveyor comments and guidance for compliance and lists tools, such as benchmarking studies, patient safety toolkits and webinars that AAAHC offers to help ASCs with compliance.
Q: What steps should ASCs take to address the top deficiencies?
NK & BL: ASCs should avail themselves of the various aids the AAAHC has created to improve compliance. Patient safety toolkits reinforce and provide tools and evidence for compliance. Benchmarking studies (Safe Injection Practices and, for 2019, Medication Reconciliation) can help pinpoint issues relative to peers, as well as best practices. Webinars offer the opportunity not only to dig into standards but are presented by AAAHC surveyors, who can answer specific questions. Achieving Accreditation, our immersive two-day seminar, is designed to help ASCs prepare for an initial or a re-accreditation survey and features break-out sessions for topics such as quality improvement, life safety code requirements and medical home.
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