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Read more »HOSPITAL SURVEYS: Technology Tools Can Improve Preparedness and Outcomes
THA HealthShare, December 19, 2017
Written by Faith Knight
Today’s hospitals must comply with numerous federal and state regulations as well as standards from a variety of additional accrediting entities. A regulatory audit requires a large amount of documentation, which may take hospital employees hours and hours to compile. Most hospitals have moved toward the use of electronic document management systems to help track all their required survey data, but for some, like Saint Thomas Health of Ascension Hospitals in Nashville, preparedness until recently was a manual process.
“We were auditing everything on paper and using spreadsheets to manually count and monitor compliance,” said Julie M. Farmer, accreditation manager for Saint Thomas Health, Ascension Hospitals. “(It was a) very slow process and (we) probably missed opportunities for improvement.”
Of course, the data gathered are useful only if the organization commits to using them to achieve a higher standard of care. Carrie Williams, chief press officer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, offered this perspective on one regulatory tool in particular – the CMS- 2567 Statement of Deficiencies and Plans of Correction.
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