The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care released a 2022 quality roadmap for ASC leaders to use for establishing benchmarks and care standards for their organizations, according to a Dec. 13 email sent to Becker's.
The roadmap is designed as a self-assessment tool for ASC leaders, to see if their organizations are meeting suggested benchmarks for patient care and accreditation. Organizations must renew their AAAHC accreditation every 1,095 days.
It is based on 2,016 onsite accreditation surveys conducted between January 2021 and March 2022 at ASCs, office-based surgery practices and primary care settings.
The onsite surveys identified five areas of high compliance and four areas of deficiency common among accredited ASCs.
Deficiency areas included emergency preparedness, document management, credentialing and privileging.
High compliance areas included business and legal conduct, supporting staff performance improvement, physician and qualified medical provider preparedness, patient education and pharmaceutical services.
"Our annual Quality Roadmap is designed to serve as a tool for self-assessment where each organization can measure their performance to improve the quality of care delivered to patients," Julie Lynch, BSN, RN, director of the assocation's institute for quality improvement, said in the release. "This annual analysis provides one of many tools for health care facilities and their staff to help them elevate the level of quality within their organization."