The waivers modify or temporarily suspend certain CMS and HHS regulatory requirements as long as the PHE is ongoing. Hospitals, for instance, have used the blanket waivers to expand the use of telehealth, delay some testing and maintenance of non-critical systems, and use temporary facilities as ways to ease the financial and daily burden of meeting the surge of COVID-19 patients.

The last time TJC was renewed as a hospital AO was in 2014, for a six-year period. That ran out as of July 15, 2020. In a special filing in the July 15, 2020, Federal Register, CMS published a notice that TJC had been approved as a hospital AO through July 15, 2022.

The Joint Commission has updated several of its hospital accreditation standards, primarily related to last year’s long-awaited revisions to the CMS Conditions of Participation (CoP) on burden reduction and discharge planning.

All four hospital accrediting organizations followed CMS in March in announcing a suspension of regular survey activity as the coronavirus pandemic swept the nation. Complaint surveys have continued as needed. And at the urging of CMS, were to continue to conduct initial accreditation surveys for new healthcare facilities as a way to increase patient capacity during the COVID-19 national emergency.

Delivering the opening remarks at the 2020 CMS Quality Conference in Washington, D.C., Verma said her agency is “looking at ways to enhance our oversight of accrediting organizations.”

For a willful violation, in which an employer knowingly failed to comply with an OSHA standard or demonstrated a plain indifference for employee safety, the minimum penalty increases from $9,472 to $9,639 and the maximum penalty increases from $132,598 to $134,937;

Researchers found that in an analysis of more than 3,600 hospitals across the country, those that provide care in neighborhoods with higher social risks achieved lower quality scores from CMS.

The updated Interpretive Guidelines for CMS surveyors includes most—but not all—of the new or revised Conditions of Participation for discharge planning and burden reduction outlined in two final rules published in September.

CMS announced the new electronic form and provided instructions on how to use it, including a video, in a Quality, Safety & Oversight Group memo, on December 2.

Infection control dominated the day’s presentations, which also looked at expectations for sterile compounding, Legionella control, using personal protective equipment, medication management, lowering maternal death rates, and, of course, ligature risk and suicide prevention.