AAAHC report identifies top deficiencies in standards compliance — 4 key findings

The AAAHC Quality Roadmap 2017 reports data from nearly 1,400 onsite accreditation surveys rated against the 2016 AAAHC Standards. Surveyed organizations include ASCs, Medicare-deemed status ASCs, office-based surgery facilities and primary care settings including occupational and student health services.

The top deficiencies were cited in at least 10 percent of survey ratings. High deficiency findings include:

1. Credentialing and privileging: conducting appropriate verification of provider qualifications, following privileging protocol and using peer reviews in the process of granting privileges

2. Documentation: key documentation requirements were incomplete or overlooked. The most noncompliance occurred in the areas of medical reconciliation and allergy documentation.

3. Quality improvement programs: many ambulatory healthcare organizations are not meeting standards for the re-measurement of data to assess the effectiveness of their improvement efforts.

4. Patient safety/safe injection practices: Many organizations struggle to present a formal infection prevention and control program and/or risk assessment, along with demonstrating safe injection practices or conducting appropriate emergency preparedness activities.

“The report is intended to serve as a resource to our accredited organizations and to provide useful benchmarks to improve the quality of care delivered to patients,” said Noel Adachi, president and CEO of AAAHC. “We also seek feedback from our accredited facilities before, during and after the survey process to ensure we provide an educational, data-driven approach to accreditation for all organizations.”

More articles on accreditation:

AAAHC-accredited center to know: Water Leaf Surgery Center

AAAHC-accredited center to know: Brookings Ambulatory Surgery Center

Medical Board of California creates new adverse event reporting requirements for outpatient surgery settings — 4 insights

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