Here’s How We Can Help You Navigate CMS Patient Safety Structural Measures
Patient safety is a critical part of healthcare quality, directly affecting outcomes as well as the overall effectiveness of care. Regrettably – despite much evidence-based practices designed to reduce preventable harm in healthcare – these practices are often not implemented consistently. As a result, many healthcare organizations fall short of the all-important goal of zero patient harm.
Consequently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has incorporated Patient Safety Structural Measures (PSSM) into the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program to assess how healthcare organizations are building and implementing structures aimed at improving safety. This new requirement of attestation to best practices evaluates whether hospitals and healthcare facilities have the infrastructure, policies, and systems in place to ensure that patient safety best practices are met consistently.
To meet these new requirements, healthcare organizations must adopt comprehensive, well-structured systems that mitigate risk and enhance the safety of care.
How LHA Trust Funds Can Help You
At LHA Trust Funds, we are committed to supporting your organization every step of the way. We have designed our On-Site Risk Assessments to help you evaluate your current compliance and identify where opportunities for improvement exist. Our on-site risk assessments are a good source of supporting documentation that your organization has completed a system-wide assessment on safety.
Our team of registered nurse patient safety consultants and workplace safety experts are available to guide you through a multi-step process that leads to complete compliance with the CMS Patient Safety Structural Measures (PSSM).
Step 1: Explore Your Organization
- Review competencies to ensure they support patient and workforce safety
- Review workforce safety plans
- Review workplace violence prevention plans
- Review policies that support culture of safety such as complaint/grievance reporting, SPHM programs, occurrence and near miss reporting, non-punitive reporting environment, etc.
Step 2: Analyze Your Organization
- Prepare data analysis reports on workforce safety events such as those listed in the PSSM (i.e. slip, trip, and fall prevention, safe patient handling, exposures, sharps injury, and violence prevention)
- Conduct gap analysis
- Conduct department-specific Job Safety Analyses with a report of the assessment and findings that can serve as your documentation of the evaluation
Step 3: Enhance Your Organization
- Assist with development of reporting dashboards
- Develop a Safe Patient Handling & Mobility (SPHM) risk assessment and assist with development of the program, including sample metrics, policies, bedside assessment, training, etc.
- Implement solutions that are based on best practices in highly reliable organizations such as huddles, handoff, physician ordering via CPOE, bedside medication verification programs, and medication safety for high-risk medications
Take the Next Step Toward Safer Care
Your organization’s commitment to patient safety starts with understanding and addressing potential risks. CMS Patient Safety Structural Measures provide a vital framework for building a strong culture of safety, but achieving compliance requires action.
LHA Trust Funds is here to support you. Our On-Site Risk Assessment will help your team identify gaps, implement proven best practices, and ensure your policies and systems align with CMS requirements. Our annual Benchmarking reports, comparing similar healthcare facilities who have had assessments, can serve as documentation of organizational safety analysis providing benchmarks of your practices against others.
Don’t wait to strengthen your safety infrastructure. Contact Vice President of Patient Safety & Risk, Stacie Jenkins, RN, MSN, at StacieJenkins@LHATrustFunds.com and take the first step toward creating a safer, more reliable healthcare environment.
Need More Resources?
Explore our Patient Safety Structural Measures (PSSM) toolkit.