All Entries Tagged With: "CMS"

New development: CMS now allows six-year damper testing in hospitals

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a memo to its state survey agencies that now formally allows hospitals to use six-year testing frequencies for fire and smoke dampers.

What’s that mean for hospitals? [more]

A deadly surgical fire results in CMS scrutiny

The case of Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion, IL, shows just how important surgical fire prevention is for a hospital in terms of bad publicity and Medicare reimbursement.

As noted in my HealthLeaders Media story last month, on September 2 a flash fire occurred on a patient undergoing surgery at Heartland Regional. That patient later died of her injuries.

I just read earlier today [more]

From infection control to South Park . . .

CMS is trying to tie hospital-acquired infections to reimbursement. Of course, ratcheting down on reimbursement only [more]

ASHE may have “had it up to here” with CMS when it comes to damper testing

You can really sense the frustration that ASHE — and more precisely, that of Deputy Executive Director Doug Erickson — has with CMS these days. Just read the latest ASHE bulletin to its members about six-year damper testing and you’ll feel the bad vibes. [more]

H1N1 call brings up hospital access control, sick employees

I listened in on a CMS open forum conference call this afternoon about H1N1 preparedness in healthcare facilities, and the topic of infection control in hospitals came up.

A CDC representative noted that [more]

Hurry up and wait for The Joint Commission at the 39-month mark

There’s been a lot of discussion (almost reaching the level of consternation, I dare say) in various forums about The Joint Commission’s survey schedule for this year, and it does appear that visits from our esteemed Chicago friends are in many instances sliding past the triennial survey anniversaries (and not even a card!).

The reasons for this are likely [more]

ASHE: You need to file waivers with CMS for six-year damper tests

ASHE sent a notice to its members Friday indicating that if hospitals want to observe six-year damper testing — as allowed by The Joint Commmission and the 2007 editions of NFPA 80, Fire Doors and Other Opening Protectives, and NFPA 105, Installation of Smoke Door Assemblies — they’ll need to apply for a waiver from CMS.

CMS doesn’t formally recognize the six-year frequencies, due to the fact the 2000 edition of the Life Safety Code, which CMS enforces, references older editions of NFPA 80 and 105, ASHE said.

I’ll try to get confirmation about this from CMS, but I have no reason to doubt what ASHE is saying. The full notice is only available to ASHE members.

Follow-up about computers-on-wheels in corridors

I was talking to Steve MacArthur earlier today about some comments and e-mails we received regarding computers-on-wheels (COWs) in egress corridors, which Steve wrote about last week.

In his post, he noted a CMS memo that mentioned which wheeled items can remain in corridors. Two points we wanted to clarify [more]

Don’t park your wheeled computers in egress corridors

When it comes to computers-on-wheels (COWs) in corridors, the same rule applies as it would for most other items in egress corridors. Any item in a corridor (regardless of it’s purpose) may be left unattended for up to 30 minutes, after which, CMS has determined, the item ceases to be “in use” and becomes “storage.”

There are two exceptions [more]

Tread carefully on the new fire watch interpretation

As you may have read already, The Joint Commission has updated its approach to fire watches by stating that fire watches would generally only be necessary during unscheduled alarm or sprinkler system disruptions.

From a consultative standpoint, I advise you to [more]