Hospital Accreditation

The cost of noncompliance is growing by millions each year, while internal resources are continually shrinking. According to a recent Ponemon report, compliance costs grew more than 100% from 2011 to 2017. Our goal is to help your organization succeed in today’s challenging environment.

We strive to deliver a great service experience that improves patient care and reduces your regulatory risks. We accomplish this by basing greater than 95% of CIHQ standards on CMS's Conditions of Participations (CoPs). The additional 5% or so are requirements related to patient safety and quality of care to help your hospital exceed the minimum set of standards as defined by CMS and the industry.

We are also always looking for new ways to make the CIHQ accreditation process more effective, faster, and easier for our hospitals.

We’ve recently partnered with PowerDMS, an electronic accreditation software provider, to streamline preparation and assist our accredited hospitals with continuous compliance to regulation and continuous survey readiness.

This partnership is just one example of the many benefits of accreditation through CIHQ.

Here is a list of tools and resources that you would have at your fingertips to take the stress and unnecessary costs out of the accreditation process and make the most of your partnership with CIHQ as your chosen accrediting organization.

Monthly Webinars
To help you better understand and address key CMS and accreditation compliance issues we offer monthly webinars. You’ll be able to ask questions on the webinar and receive a copy of the presentation and any associated material afterward. The webinars are archived for 12 months so if you are not able to attend the live session you can still benefit from the education.

Conferences
Your employees can take advantage of professional development workshops, best practice information sharing, networking, and receive the latest information in quality and patient safety from experts in the field at our annual summit. Two individuals from each accredited hospital can attend the summit free of charge. More may attend at a nominal fee.

Continuing Education
Earn CE credits with our continuing education resource center. This resource center contains a wide variety of web-based education modules on accreditation and regulatory topics. Our CE credits are approved by the California Board of Nursing and can be used in most all other states.

Staff Education
Training your staff on regulatory subjects is easy with our fully customizable training modules that can be tailored to meet your organization's needs. If a CIHQ/CMS regulation requires staff to be educated, then a module had been created and is available for use with a post test for tracking purposes.

Policy Reviews
Be confident you’re on track with your compliance with unlimited access to CIHQ-ARS staff for review of major policies to ensure they meet accreditation and certification requirements. The reviews will be conducted to let you know if the minimum intent of the regulation is met or if the document lacks significant components of the regulatory requirements.

Standards & Regulatory Interpretation
Members have unlimited access to our in-house panel of experts by phone or email to assist with questions and interpreting the accreditation standards and CMS Conditions of Participation (COP) for acute care hospitals. This service is available 365 days a year. We generally will answer your question within a few hours. The answer will include the intent of the regulation, the expectation of compliance, and the process that surveyors will use to assess your compliance to the regulation.

Resource Library
Save time developing and updating your compliance content with our electronic resource library of over 2300 policy templates, documents, and other tools addressing accreditation standards and CMS requirements. Documents are formatted in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint making them easy for you to customize. The library is regularly updated with new or revised templates as requirements for standards and regulations change.

Even if you’re accredited with TJC or another organization you can still gain access to our research library and other helpful resources. Visit https://cihq-ars.org/ to enroll in CIHQ ARS.

Electronic Accreditation Software
In lieu of paper and binders, we have partnered with PowerDMS, a leader in policy and accreditation software, to digitize the survey process. This will allow CIHQ surveyors to review your policies and compliance documentation remotely and reallocate onsite time for face-to-face collaboration. Not only will PowerDMS enhance the survey process, but it can benefit your facility in many ways. We’ve outlined a few below.

PowerDMS software helps you prepare for your survey by crosswalking your compliance documentation to the CIHQ standards. A few of the many benefits PowerDMS offers include:

• Ensure Survey Readiness: Identify potential deficiencies by crosswalking your policies and other documentation to each CIHQ standard.
• Eliminate Chaos: Provide staff with 24/7, mobile access to the most current policies, procedures, and non-clinical documentation.
• Save Money: PowerDMS streamlines your compliance management, helping you cut thousands of dollars in paper, printing, and overtime costs.

To learn more about PowerDMS visit. https://www.powerdms.com/cihq-and-powerdms/.

Our goal is to take the stress and financial burden out of accreditation and help your organization maintain a standard of excellence. We hope you’ll take full advantage of these tools to achieve your accreditation goals. And if you’re ready to experience the CIHQ difference, we invite you to explore what other hospitals are saying when they switch to CIHQ at https://cihq.org/hospital_accreditation_division.asp.