Joint Commission Expert Addresses CMS Directive
Speaking at a packed session at the AAMI 2012 Conference & Expo, Joint Commission expert George Mills said Sunday that he has collected data that shows that granting hospitals some flexibility in the maintenance strategies for medical equipment is safe and effective.
Mills' comments, which were greeted enthusiastically by the audience gathered in Charlotte, NC, addressed head-on an issue that has roiled the healthcare technology management (HTM) community for months. In December, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a directive that said healthcare facilities had far less flexibility in setting preventive maintenance (PM) schedules than had been believed or practiced. Specifically, the directive said healthcare facilities had to follow the manufacturer's instructions for PM frequencies on critical and new devices.
Since then, Mills, who is director of the accreditation organization’s Engineering Department, has met with CMS officials who asked him to gather research on PM practices in the field. And Mills said the data shows that The Joint Commission's (TJC) practice of allowing other maintenance strategies “has been a safe, reliable practice."
The data comes from a survey last month distributed in part to members of AAMI. The survey asked questions about facility bed size, pieces of equipment, whether they use The Joint Commission’s maintenance process, and if it caused any adverse patient outcomes such as death or serious injury.
The overwhelming majority of responses from AAMI members reported no adverse outcomes, Mills told more than 300 session attendees who immediately erupted into applause.
Mills said that he and representatives from AAMI and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering are working to set up a meeting with CMS to review the results.
One attendee said he was pleased with the teamwork and collaboration to address the issue.
“I am glad to see the interaction from other hospitals and third party vendors as well because it is going to affect us all,” said Kevin Ferguson, clinical engineer with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, OH. “When we work as a group we are going to do what is right for the patient.”
In his comments to the audience, Mills—whose sessions at the AAMI annual conferences consistently draw a large and engaged crowd—emphasized that CMS released the directive with the best of intentions.“They really thought it was helping us,” he said.
But many in the HTM community saw the directive as a costly and unnecessary burden.
“This would quadruple our PM hours without any evidence of better patient outcomes,” said Paul Canaris, who works for Central Texas Veterans Health System in Temple, TX.
Posted: June 4, 2012