Accreditation guidelines aim to help your ASC run more efficiently. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Accreditation Association of Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) are there to help you improve the quality of care and patient safety. But staying on top of these accreditations can be a lot of work. Fortunately, some specific strategies can help you streamline.
Enhance your communication
To maintain accreditation, ASCs must have strategies for keeping patients informed about their rights and responsibilities, payments, medical histories, and treatment plans. Sharing this information in person with patients is only one component of an overall communication strategy.
A stellar communication plan incorporates written reminders, follow-up, and targeted education for patients. Certain software can give your ASC the ability to send patients specific reminders about their surgery based on their medical chart. After surgery, the same technology can follow up with patients to remind them of how and when to make their payments.
Ensure quality of care
A critical component of quality care is ensuring that patients receive timely, accurate diagnoses and treatment plans. Gathering an appropriate, accurate medical history is crucial.
In the past, gathering patient documents from referring physicians was a timely process done by fax and over the phone. With today’s technology, physician offices can upload patient data directly to a HIPAA-compliant secure cloud. This digital solution leads to a decrease in missing documents, delays, and cancellations. Additionally, the software can flag specific areas of a patient’s history that may need further review and attention.
Know how you can improve
Part of maintaining accreditation is making sure that you have a data-driven plan for improvement. Using digital solutions to enhance your communication helps you gather accurate, relevant data to drive quality measures. For example, digital communication software can send patients specific follow-up surveys after surgery.
Today’s technology options can help you assess quality data in a few specific, crucial areas:
- Increase patient satisfaction
- Decrease same-day cancellations
- Decrease in number of preventable hospital transfers due to better screening assessments
- Decrease in number of overtime hours to complete pre-op screenings
- Increase in staff efficiency by enhancing communication and collaboration
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