Does Your Environment of Care Measure Up?

What You Need to Know BEFORE the Inspectors Come

Sponsored by:

Is your healthcare facility prepared?

As in, are you prepared 24/7, 365 days a year for The Joint Commission to assess your healthcare facility at a moment’s notice, whether key administrative officials who are “in the know” are there or not?

Or are you prepared to face the consequences if you’re not ready, including the possibility of losing your accreditation, which can mean losing major funding, triggering arduous Medicare inspections, or even facing further scrutiny from other sets of regulators?

What if something you could have controlled in your environment of care could have prevented your loss of accreditation, which is so often the case?

Just look at Anaheim General in California. When they lost their accreditation in November 2008, they were cited for 47 patient safety deficiencies, including not having an adequate emergency plan or water supplies, not keeping life-saving medicines on hand, improperly storing medications, inadequate procedures for preventing infections, poorly inspected medical equipment, and fire safety violations.

Their loss of accreditation jeopardized their ability to attract privately insured patients – a huge blow to a hospital known for serving a large portion of the poor and homeless population in their region.They needed the insurance dollars from those private patients just to survive. They stood to lose private and public funding, making a bad situation worse, and ultimately risked closing completely, not to mention the numerous investigations their loss of accreditation triggered.

There are so many specific areas that The Joint Commission Environment of Care surveys cover. And you need to know how you would rate BEFORE the inspectors come knocking on your door.

Sometimes it’s the “little things” in your environment of care – those daily routine things that you do without noticing anymore – that can have the biggest repercussions down the road. And now is the time to train and engage your entire staff to prevent mistakes from happening and to answer The Joint Commission’s inquiries.

Can you really afford to risk losing your Joint Commission accreditation and the funding you would lose with it? Can you afford to risk patient and staff safety? What about the potential loss of human life, additional resources spent to correct mistakes, possible state fines and potential litigation costs? How can you not afford to make sure your environment of care meets and even exceeds the new standards The Joint Commission set forth in 2009?

So Much to Do—Where to Start?

The standards are overwhelming to review and implement, but now there is an easier way to improve your environment of care with Environment of Care Training Camp. This live, interactive training from nationally known healthcare consultants breaks down the new standards into manageable, easy-to-understand chunks.

The new standards are broad, ranging from serious infractions to removing clutter from corridors and having paperwork in order. Getting a better grasp of what is expected to improve your environment of care will help you develop a better plan for implementing the standards – on a continuous basis, so you’re always ready.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. Think of Environment of Care Training Camp as the prevention to common and costly mistakes, big and small, that almost every healthcare facility makes – but not yours, after participating in this one-of-a-kind training camp.

Gain key insight into:

• Where to begin? In this seemingly insurmountable task, where do you begin, even if your facility is already in decent shape – and especially if it isn’t – and how can you tell which camp you’re in?
• Where does the Standards Improvement Initiative actually help healthcare facilities by streamlining the accreditation process – and how will it impact your facility?
• How to get the most improvement in the areas that will get you the most points – by making your environment of care surveys more closely mirror The Joint Commission measurement and evaluation process.
• What you don’t know about hazardous waste could hurt you and your patients. Tackle the biggest issues in hazardous materials and waste – from today’s hot issues like pharmaceutical waste and new developments in handling waste materials to creating a sustainable and compliant hazardous waste program.
• Why did an unannounced Joint Commission survey for one hospital include an engineering survey when reviewing life safety compliance – and what were the results?
• The most misunderstood – and most critical – assessment: the 96-Hour Emergency Management Survival Assessment. New questions have been raised, as family members sue hospitals for not having adequate emergency plans after Hurricane Katrina – which may or may not have led to their relatives’ deaths. Now those families are in court, and The Joint Commission has new expectations that you have to meet.
• New technology could be putting you and your patients at risk. Do you know how to assess and control the clinical and physical risks of the medical equipment you’re using? These risks factor into new Joint Commission surveys.
• Is your back-up power plan adequate? Is your utilities management team ready to face a massive system failure? How will you support the systems that support the care and treatment of patients? And what are your responsibilities, legally and ethically?

The environment of care that you provide in your facility dictates the experience of every person who comes through your offices and halls – patients, their family, staff, and others who support patients’ health and comfort.

Washing hands and hygiene, making sure all personnel have proper I.D. at all times, and not propping doors open may seem like small things at first. But controlling these issues up front reduces infection rates, prevents infant abduction, increases security, improves evacuation procedures – and could ultimately save patients from serious unintended injuries and even death.

Because surveys are now unannounced and can happen when key managers, directors and other administrative staff aren’t around, there’s never been a greater need for training and involvement of staff at all levels in managing the patient care environment.

Wherever you fall in the spectrum, there’s always room for improvement – especially when gaining insight into making those improvements is so incredibly easy! Join us for Environment of Care Training Camp, and experience two days of unique, revealing, and potentially life-saving information that will have you compliant and operating at peak performance.