New focus for surveyors: Emergency management
Surveyors will focus on hazard assessments
The events of Sept. 11 are rippling through the health care system in a number of ways, and it appears they will lead to some changes in the way the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations surveyors look at health care providers this year.
At the recent annual conference for Joint Com-mission surveyors in Chicago, one of the featured speakers was Len Aubrey, CEO of New York University’s Downtown Hospital, the hospital nearest to the World Trade Center in New York City and the facility most directly affected by the emergency.
According to a report provided by the Joint Commission, Aubrey stressed the importance of emergency preparedness and disaster training of all medical staff, not just the emergency department.
Surveyors attending the conference were told that "emergency management and preparedness will be one area that surveyors will focus on in 2002." Joe Cappiello, vice president of Accreditation Field Operations for the Joint Commission, says surveyors will focus on hazard vulnerability assessments that identify all potential hazards to the organization and how those hazards can directly and indirectly affect the organization.
Focus on community emergency planning
Surveyors also will look at how well the organization is involved in community emergency planning and practice drills, communication and planning in cooperation with other area health care organizations, and the organization’s scalable command structure. The scalable command structure refers to the organization’s ability to flex to the magnitude of a particular disaster.
The Joint Commission reports that another area of focus for 2002 will be the new staffing effectiveness standards, HR.2.1, which go into effect for hospitals in July 2002 and tentatively for non-hospital programs by January 2003.
Pilot testing of the draft standards has been conducted at 43 hospitals and five long-term care and assisted-living organizations.
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