Revising the accreditation standards

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• More emphasis on safety and patient outcomes
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It is difficult to believe that 2 years have gone by, and we are in the process once again of revising the accreditation standards. The Commission on Accreditation for Medical Transport Systems' (CAMTS) Standards Committee had a very well-attended meeting during the October 2005 AMTC. The comments and suggestions to the Standards Committee have been incorporated into the first draft of revisions. This draft was posted on the CAMTS website (with a process to comment) and sent to board members, who distributed it to their representative member organizations. We also distributed a newsletter to more than 500 professionals on our mailing list with an article about the proposed revisions.

The process to revise and publish new standards is as follows: Comments from the medical transport community regarding the first draft of revisions will be discussed at the April 1, 2006 board of directors meeting in Las Vegas. From that discussion, a second draft will be posted and additional comments will be accepted until we send final suggestions to the Standards Committee in June. The committee will forward a final draft to the board of directors for approval in July 2006. The 7^th edition Accreditation Standards will be published by September 2006.

The practice of revising standards every 2 years is almost not quick enough to stay current with the evolving practice of medical transport, especially air medical transport. The board has recognized that our accreditation process may require a site visit every 3 years, but expectations that accredited services are responsible for meeting new standards is a challenge for CAMTS and the accredited services. In the past, we have allowed services to submit a program information form (PIF) addressing the previous edition of standards up to 6 months after new standards are published. Because of the extensive time commitment required to complete a PIF, the board will continue to allow this leeway for programs submitting a PIF between September 2006 and April 2007.

However, the services planning to submit during that time frame will be provided with a supplement that will inquire about compliance with any new standards. It is not the board's intention to judge compliance with new standards in a capricious manner, but rather to assist medical transport services in their plans to meet compliance with the new standards.

The following general concepts are addressed in the first draft of revisions for the 2007 Accreditation Standards:

01.10.01 The Business Code of Ethics will be expanded to include acceptable practice with regard to brokering, sub-contracting, outsourcing, and referring requests for transport.

01.14.00 A new section on compliance issues regarding how services deal with:

07.01.08 More emphasis on utilization review, requiring tracking and trending and evidence of feedback to the requesting agents.

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More emphasis on safety and patient outcomes 

02.01.13 Medical director involvement with primary facilities and patient outcomes at the time patients are received.

08.05.07 Evidence of performance measures that validate statistically driven data to identify areas for improvement and the effectiveness of corrective actions.

Crew Scheduling: changes will be evidence-based—research on length of shift, circadian rhythms, number of transports, and rest–duty time policies—will be considered.

11.01.02 “Local flying area” to be defined as limited to 30 nautical miles.

11.01.04 Changes in weather minimums: Increasing ceiling and visibility for night local and night cross country.

The CAMTS board is interested in your comments and suggestions, and we invite you to participate in this process of revising standards. The CAMTS website (www.camts.org) will have the most recent draft posted (up until July 2006), along with a process to submit your comments specific to the revisions or to any current standard that may not be included in the revisions. Accreditation Standards can be downloaded for free; see the “Free Download” menu on our home page.