Check out the updated tool surveyors will use to assess your agency for an infection control survey. In a memo to surveyors issued Dec. 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services makes a number of COVID-19-related revisions to the IC survey tool. For home health and hospice providers, “the relevant revisions … are hand hygiene and use of personal protective equipment (PPE),” offers the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter.
Plus: In accordance with the updated memo, “hospice inpatient units … should have a screening process to assess for signs/symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and for exposure to others with known or suspected COVID-19,” NAHC advises. The 12-page memo and tool are at www.cms.gov/files/document/qso-21-08-nltc.pdf.