Our Licensing team routinely analyzes the most frequent and important deficiencies that we observe when we conduct inspections at our licensed facilities. We use the data to help educate the folks that we license… and to identify topics for provider training and technical assistance (public health interventions). For example, our medical facilities licensing team has found that infection control had become increasingly troublesome among some dialysis providers.
That info led our medical facilities licensing team to join with our Office of Infectious Disease Services and our Healthcare Associated Infections Advisory Committee to conduct a day-long collaboration for our licensed dialysis providers and public health professionals. We conducted the collaborative a few months ago- providing tools for dialysis providers to improve their infection control performance by building relationships with public health, renal associations, federal partners and other stakeholders. The event was very well attended; participants spent the day sharing best practices, identifying new ways to promote infection control, and developing a strategic plan for future activities. Best of all- we’ve seen a decrease in deficient practices since the event.
Our ADVICE Collaborative has been identified by the federal government as a Best Practice Pilot and will be featured at the upcoming Roadmap to Eliminate HAI: 2013 Action Plan Conference. Kathy McCanna, our branch chief of Healthcare Institution Licensing will be presenting at the conference about our collaborative. You’ll find more about the collaborative by visiting our website. This is just one of our many examples of how we’re leveraging licensing to improve public health outcomes.
