2022 CIHQ Summit Takeaways

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been three years since the last Center for Improvement in Healthcare Quality (CIHQ) Summit. This year’s annual CIHQ Summit was held September 27-29, in Allen, TX. We had record attendance at this year’s summit with 262 attendees! 

The conference kicked off on Tuesday, September 27th with two professional certification in-person classes. CIHQ has two healthcare certification programs called the Healthcare Accreditation Certified Professional (HACP). Individuals can choose from either a HACP for CMS regulations or the HACP-PE for the Physical Environment requirements. This was the first year for the newly developed HACP-PE certification program. Eighteen individuals participated in the HACP-PE course and sat for the exam on the following day. We would like to congratulate all the participants who attended the courses and have received their HACP-PE certifications!

The Plenary sessions kicked off on Wednesday, September 28th, and concluded on Thursday, September 29th with more than 250 participants in attendance. The Summit’s theme was Hardwiring Compliance in the Post-Covid Era. 

Here is a list of sessions provided:

• Making a Case for the Culture of Compliance
• Hardwiring Compliance – It starts with the 855A
• Hardwiring Compliance in the Physical Environment
• Hardwiring Compliance in the Medical Record
• Hardwiring Compliance – Engaging Physicians and Medical Staff
• Hardwiring Compliance – Managing the Survey Process
• Now What? Turning Endings into Beginnings

Key takeaways from HACP-PE and the Physical Environment presentations:

• There is a need for more education around the care environment regulations. Many organizations want to do the right thing but are unsure of what is required of them.
• The survey process starts with the review of documents. It can get your survey off to a rough start if they are not available or presented appropriately. These traditionally have led to Condition Level deficiencies for hospitals as an aggregate number of findings during the survey. Strategies included having a dedicated person responsible for maintaining all testing records; how to present the documents in a concise manner (both paper-based and electronically); and audit tools to ensure all required documents are available at the time of a survey.
• Most generational findings in hospitals can be significantly reduced or eliminated by having a proper system in place to assess the buildings. Make sure that the right people are part of the teams that conduct the assessment within your facility. 
• As part of the organization's QAPI program, make sure to have results of the inspection, testing, and maintenance activities reported. Include reporting for building deficiencies from environmental rounding. This way it will reduce generational findings and help with the presentation of records and the environment during a survey.

The CIHQ Summit is always looking to improve. Next year will be no exception as we make changes based on feedback from our participants. The 2023 CIHQ Summit is scheduled for September 27-28th. We look forward to seeing you then!

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