AAAHC recently released its Quality Roadmap 2019 report, which includes analyses of data from more than 1,200 accreditation surveys conducted in 2018. The report identifies areas of high and low compliance, providing expert insight into how ambulatory health care organizations can improve their performance and quality of care. The most common deficiencies centered on quality improvement studies, infection prevention/safe injection practices, credentialing and privileging, as well as documentation management. 

The AAAHC Quality Roadmap 2019 examined organizations’ compliance ratings for current AAAHC Standards during 1,299 onsite surveys from March 1–December 31, 2018. The types of organizations surveyed include ambulatory surgery centers (ASC), office-based surgery practices (OBS) and primary care (PC) settings.

Findings on High-Deficiency Standards

The report indicates that the top deficiencies cited in more than 10 percent of survey ratings were consistent with themes identified in the 2018 results, including quality improvement studies, credentialing and privileging, documentation, and safe injection practices.  

Findings on High-Compliance Standards
AAAHC’s analysis also found accredited organizations have shown improvement in key areas broken down by Non-Medicare and Medicare Deemed Status Standards, including:

Non-Medicare Deemed Status Standards

·         Engaging patients in care decisions

·         Training staff in emergency equipment and safe evacuation plans

·         Identifying opportunities for quality improvement studies

·         Providing ongoing staff development and improvement

Medicare Deemed Status Standards

·         Ensuring the appropriate providers and equipment are available when treating patients

·         Educating staff on new devices or products used for patient care

·         Complying with state and local building codes and regulations

“The Quality Roadmap presents actionable data that can be used to help ambulatory providers develop stronger policies, procedures and practices. These, in turn, will help to build a quality improvement culture that is integrated into day-to-day operations, building off the 1095 Strong, quality every day philosophy,” said Naomi Kuznets, Ph.D., AAAHC Institute vice president and senior director. “Organizations are encouraged to share and discuss the report’s findings with their teams to drive collaboration and decision making focused on quality improvement and other corrective actions.”

The AAAHC Quality Roadmap 2019 is available for download at https://www.aaahc.org/quality/aaahc-quality-roadmap.