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Ambulatory surgery centers face IC crackdown

Briefings on Infection Control, July 1, 2009

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On May 18, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began enforcing the new Conditions for Coverage (CfC) for ambulatory surgical centers (ASC).

These new conditions require any ASC currently Medicare-certified or seeking Medicare certification to adhere to several revised IC practices. Most importantly, these facilities need to designate a person to be in charge of IC and a quality assessment and performance improvement program (QAPI); document implementation of nationally recognized IC guidelines; and provide a plan of action for preventing, identifying, and managing infections and communicable diseases through a QAPI (see “Pay attention to new IC-related CfCs” on p. 6).

In the past few years, there have been several outbreaks in ambulatory centers that made headlines. Perhaps the most infamous incident occurred in Nevada in February 2008, when state health officials revealed that unsafe injection practices at an outpatient clinic potentially put 40,000 patients at risk for hepatitis C (HCV).

“Ambulatory care has been a considerable concern for us for quite some time because unless the ambulatory care clinic or center is part of a larger healthcare system, there is very little, if any, infection prevention and control oversight,” says Kathy Warye, CEO of APIC in Washington, DC. “This is why you have seen the growing number of outbreaks.”

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Briefings on Infection Control.

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