Healthcare Life Safety Compliance: Combustible decorations, stairwell treads, and temporary construction barriers
Hospital Safety Insider, October 20, 2016
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Insider!
Q: In regards to the new CMS requirements regarding corridor projections, will alcohol-based hand-rub (ABHR) dispensers have to comply? Currently, our ABHR dispensers exceed the 4-inch limit for items projecting into the corridor. Will there be any equivalency permitted for this requirement?
A: CMS said in its final rule to adopt the 2012 Life Safety Code(r) (LSC) (issued May 4, 2016) that it will enforce the 4-inch projection rule rather than the 6-inch rule that NFPA permits. CMS takes this more restrictive requirement from the ADA requirements but the problem is, ADA applies to new construction and is not retroactive to existing conditions. CMS did not clarify that its 4-inch corridor projection rule is only for new construction, so it appears to me that CMS intends to enforce it in all situations... new and existing. It remains unclear whether the accreditation organizations will enforce this. They should, because if they don't and the hospital has a validation survey and is cited by the state agency for violating the 4-inch projection rule, then that will eventually reflect poorly on the accreditation organization. But with surveyors being the humans that they are, it is unclear if they will enforce this or not. While I do not recommend it, you can take a "wait-and-see" approach to determine whether you get cited for it. You will eventually, because CMS will enforce it. So I suggest you take action to eliminate those dispensers and look for new ones that do not extend more than 4 inches. There is no equivalency for this issue. I would think a waiver would not be approved for such a minor issue either.
Read more here.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Hospital Safety Insider!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- Complications from immobility by body system
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- Differentiate between types of wound debridement
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- ICD-10-CM coma, stroke codes require more specific documentation
- E-mailed
-
- Correctly bill ancillary bedside procedures in addition to the room rate
- Q&A: Utilization Review Committee Membership
- Q&A: Bill blood administration the same way for inpatient and outpatient accounts
- Q&A: A second look at encephalopathy as integral to seizures/CVA
- Performing a SWOT analysis
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Know the medical gas cylinder storage requirements
- Intravenous therapy guidelines
- Coding, billing, and documentation tips for teaching physicians, interns, residents, and students
- Coding tip: Watch for different codes for SI joint injections
- Searched