Here’s how to prepare for accreditation

Have all staff ready when surveyors arrive

If your facility is considering seeking CARF accreditation, here are some tips from CARF and those who have been through the process:

• Allow enough time for accreditation. It usually takes 12 to 16 months from the time you begin preparing to when you receive the results. If you are already accredited, allow six to eight months to prepare for the new survey. If you are a new facility, you must have been using the standards for at least six months.

• Use a team approach to prepare. The team should be a mix of all people in all levels and all departments. For instance, marketing should be involved in meeting the standards that include community involvement. Plant engineering should be consulted on the standards that concern drills and evacuation issues.

• Take advantage of CARF resources as you prepare. The commission staff are there to help. Be sure to involve everyone on your team in a teleconference or e-mail to answer questions; if several people call about an issue, they may interpret the answers differently.

• Set aside adequate financial resources for the process. You may have to make changes to comply with the standards.

• A successful mock survey is no guarantee. Even if you hire a CARF surveyor to conduct a mock survey, remember that the actual team will decide on accreditation.

• Make sure the entire staff understand your policies and procedures. CARF surveyors won’t confine their questions to management. They are likely to walk up to a ward clerk or nursing assistant and ask them to explain a document or procedure.

• Conduct role-playing sessions with staff. Simulate the questions that may be asked by surveyors. The questions are most likely to be open-ended, such as "What do you do if you receive a bomb threat?" or "How do you use outcomes information to make program changes?"

• Tell your staff that if they don’t understand a question, they can ask for clarification.

• Remember that the surveyors don’t know your program. Make sure you can clearly and concisely explain it to them.

• Get someone who doesn’t usually handle your records to try to find information. This ensures that the information will be accessible to the surveyors.

• Include surveyors in talks with CARF. If you have an issue with a surveyor, include him or her in a conference call to the CARF office. Don’t call behind the surveyor’s back.

• Make sure there is a clean copy of the self-study materials for the survey team. Give it to them to study the night before the survey begins.

• Enlist someone as a driver between sitesfor surveyors to talk with . This allows transit time to become part of the survey process and cuts down on wasted time.

• On your application, specify travel time between multiple locations. The surveyors need this information to plan their days.

• If you don’t have a written policy on something, don’t try to write it at the last minute. The surveyors want to see policies that the staff understand and can repeat.