Home Health & Hospice Week

Patient privacy is at the top of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' agenda. In a letter to state survey agency directors, CMS reiterated that it supports and encourages the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and is "committed to a goal that by 2014, most Americans will have access to health care providers who use EHRs," a goal first established by President George W. Bush in 2004.

Surveyors must be able to conduct the survey process consistently across facilities -- whether those facilities use paper-based records or electronic ones, CMS said in the letter. To ensure that consistency,surveyors should discuss their process with each facility in the beginning so that surveyors are allowed unrestricted access to medical records.

Teamwork: Providers must help surveyors access the records they need regardless of how those records are stored. CMS outlines the steps agencies must take to help surveyors, including:

• Provide the surveyor with a tutorial on how to use its particular EHR system;

• Designate an individual who will, when requested by the surveyor, access the system, respond to any questions, or assist the surveyor as needed in accessing electronic information in a timely fashion; and

• Provide direct print capability to the surveyor or make available a printout of any record or part of a record upon request in a timeframe that does not impede the survey process.

Remember: CMS reminds surveyors to  only print or request paper copies for the parts of records they need to support noncompliance findings,unless protocol requires otherwise.

Resource: Access the full text of the letter at www.cms.hhs.gov/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/downloads/SCLetter09-10.pdf.