January 2024 Newsletter

In the News This Month

Greetings Everyone and Happy New Year!
We hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.

The C&A team is very excited for 2024 as it marks our 30th anniversary of service, providing accreditation and regulatory support to healthcare organizations throughout the country. Founded in 1994, Courtemanche & Associates was established to improve healthcare, particularly quality and patient safety, and throughout our tenure our team of dedicated consultants has continued their focus on this mission. We look forward to many more years of supporting our clients, both existing and those we will meet in the future, who are on their journey to meet their accreditation and regulatory compliance goals, improving quality performance and enhancing patient care.

This month’s articles include two areas related to patient safety where organization's frequently fall short during their triennial survey.

Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluations (OPPE) is an area where healthcare organizations consistently struggle. Therefore, we continue to provide information to assist staff in developing an effective process. Senior Consultant, Denise Smith's article, "Creating Effective OPPE Performance Measurement Indicators," outlines key performance indicators for your consideration, as a means to ensure practitioners are following safe practices and providing quality patient care.

"Why Thorough Instrument Inspection Matters for Patient Safety," also authored by C&A's Denise Smith, highlights the importance of implementing an in-depth instrument inspection process while providing guidelines to follow in doing so.

Thank you for taking the time to read our articles. We hope these will be helpful in preparing you for the new year. If you have any suggestions for future topics or require our services, please reach out to us at info@courtemanche-assocs.com. Our team is always available and eager to assist you in any way we can.

Doctor being certified.

Dec 28 2023

Creating Effective OPPE Performance Measurement Indicators
It's time to look at OPPE again!   In 2008, The Joint Commission issued new standards related to ongoing professional performance evaluations.   These evaluations became part of the medical staff process for granting and maintaining practice privileges in a healthcare organization.  Despite these standards being issued over 15 years ...
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About the Authors

Denise Smith, RN, BS, MS, CLNC, HACP-CMS

Denise Smith is a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche & Associates. In this role she is responsible for assessing healthcare organizational readiness for licensing, certification, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. She has extensive knowledge in the requirements of The Joint Commission, DNV, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services including knowledge in their survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination. She also has knowledge and experience in AAAHC and other regulatory and accreditation organizations. She assists organizations with survey preparation, educational needs, post survey activities, patient safety strategies and quality improvement initiatives. Denise has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in Infection Prevention, Sterile Processing, Legal Nurse Consulting, Quality and Resource Management, Clinical Education, in acute inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Denise Smith, Senior Consultant
hospital staff inspecting surgical instruments using a magnifying light.

Dec 28 2023

Why Thorough Instrument Inspection Matters for Patient Safety
Inspection of instrumentation is essential to the safety of the patients under our care.  The community expects that the care they are receiving in their healthcare facility is safe and that they will not have an adverse event while hospitalized, such as developing an infection. During a regulatory survey, ...
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About the Authors

Denise Smith, RN, BS, MS, CLNC, HACP-CMS

Denise Smith is a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche & Associates. In this role she is responsible for assessing healthcare organizational readiness for licensing, certification, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. She has extensive knowledge in the requirements of The Joint Commission, DNV, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services including knowledge in their survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination. She also has knowledge and experience in AAAHC and other regulatory and accreditation organizations. She assists organizations with survey preparation, educational needs, post survey activities, patient safety strategies and quality improvement initiatives. Denise has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in Infection Prevention, Sterile Processing, Legal Nurse Consulting, Quality and Resource Management, Clinical Education, in acute inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Denise Smith, Senior Consultant

Disclaimer: The information on this website is published in good faith for general information purposes only. This website does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information.

The Joint Commission® is a registered trademark of Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Courtemanche & Associates has no affiliation with this entity.

Courtemanche & Associates | (704)-573-4535 | Email: info@courtemanche-assocs.com

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