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How will the JCAHO survey our disaster plan in 2006?

Accreditation Connection, November 7, 2005

If you work in a hospital with 200 beds or more, be aware that the JCAHO will change how it evaluates your disaster plans in 2006, Jerry Gervais, CHFM, CHSP, associate director of standards for the JCAHO, said during the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Service's Annual Preparedness Conference in Milwaukee on September 13.

Larger hospitals will participate in an emergency management committee session that will commence in the hospital's incident command center, says Gervais. Highlights of the session, which will last two to four hours, include

• a review of the hospital's emergency management plan
• surveyors choosing a detailed, predetermined disaster scenario based on the facility's hazard vulnerability analysis and then visiting the departments to determine whether hospital staff understand their roles in such a scenario

Hospitals that comply with the JCAHO's emergency management standards should find this new session bearable, says Steven MacArthur, safety consultant with The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc., in Marblehead, MA.

"The ultimate expectation is that each staff member should know what his or her role in the plan is and how they go about performing that role effectively," MacArthur says.

Surveyors will receive training on this new session in January, Gervais says.

Adapated from the November issue of Briefings on Hospital Safety.

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