Life Safety Healthcare Consultants featured in OR Manager Vol. 32 No. 7 July 2016
For an ambulatory surgery center (ASC), maintaining a safe physical environment for patients generally falls to the administrator and governing board. For those who lack expertise in healthcare architecture, building codes, and risk management, it may pay to hire a consultant. Even so, ASC managers remain responsible for compliance. Fortunately, according to survey reports, some of the most common deficiencies are things even an untrained person could control by knowing the rules and having a procedure to implement them.
“An ASC is very different from a bank or a school,” says John Crowder, Jr, PG, CFPS, CHFM, principal of Life Safety Healthcare Consultants, Gallatin, Tennessee, when re- minding clients of the need for specialized training. To start them on the right track, Crowder, who also is an AAAHC surveyor, begins each new project with a free tele- phone conference and onsite survey. Any discrepancies provide the basis for staff train- ing and policy revision. Crowder and others say a half-dozen places in the ASC account for most deficiencies. Of those, most are easily remedied once the staff understand the rules and reasons.
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