(Melinda) Hello, everyone. I'm Melinda Lehman,
with the Marketing Department at The Joint Commission,
and welcome to today's webinar:
Peer Perspectives on Joint Commission Accreditation.
Before we get started, I'd like to go over a few things
so you know how to participate in today's event.
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Next.
And now, I'd like to introduce Colette Bukowski,
Associate Director
of the Behavioral Health and Human Services Accreditation Program
at The Joint Commission,
and today's moderator.
Colette?
(Colette) Thanks, Melinda.
Thank you, everyone, for joining us for our Peer Perspectives
on Joint Commission Accreditation webinar today.
We've put together a nice panel of four great leaders
from some Joint Commission- accredited organizations
who have given their time to us today.
We know they're busy, so we're very thankful to them.
We have Amber Thomas,
who's the Chief Clinical Officer at Crossroads Health.
She's also joined by her colleague Sue Tager.
Nick Mercadante, the founder and CEO of PursueCare.
Cheryl Rathbun,
the Chief Clinical Officer at Saint Francis Ministries.
And Brian Rogers, the Director of Quality from Embark.
Next slide.
As Melinda said, I am your moderator.
I'm the Associate Director of Business Development
for the Behavioral Healthcare and Human Services Accreditation Program.
I have been in the field for over 25 years as a provider,
served in several senior leadership positions
at Behavioral Healthcare organizations.
And then was also a Surveyor
for The Joint Commission Behavioral Healthcare
and Human Services cadre
before joining the Business Development program,
and I'm happy to be here with you today.
Next slide.
So before we delve into our perspectives
of our organizations who joined us today,
I just want to give you a little overview about Joint Commission accreditation.
Next slide.
The Joint Commission is the oldest and most trusted standards-setting body.
We are an independent and nonprofit organization
that was founded back in 1951.
The Joint Commission has been accrediting Behavioral Healthcare and Human Services
for organizations for over 50 years,
and we accredit across the continuum
of Behavioral Healthcare and Human Services.
This includes mental health services, addiction services,
human service organizations,
intellectual and developmental disability,
services and organizations, and opioid treatment programs.
Achieving a Gold Seal represents your organization's commitment
to meet the highest national standards around safety and quality.
It's also increasingly becoming a qualifying factor
for network and payer partnerships.
The Joint Commission accredits over 23,000 organizations.
Of those, 3,900...
just a little above 3,900 of those are Behavioral Healthcare
and Human Service organizations,
and that represents around 12,970 individual sites of care.
Next slide.
Accreditation can be viewed as a market distinction
achieved through demonstrating performance against a set of industry standards.
The Joint Commission's Behavioral Healthcare
and Human Service standards are developed with industry peers
and recognized experts in the field.
They represent the benchmark for safety and quality.
On a high level, the process for accreditations includes,
and this is a very simple overview,
the three-step process is submitting an application
for accreditation with The Joint Commission,
undergoing a survey to validate performance against the standards,
and then being awarded accreditation.
For questions or more details about that process,
because that is a very brief overview,
you can connect with one of our team members
whose contact information will be at the end of this webinar.
Next slide.
Accreditation brings internal value to an organization.
The framework results in increased standardization of practices,
reduced variation across programs, sites, and services,
which ultimately decreases risk to those you serve,
as well as your staff and visitors to your organization.
These all result in improved safety and quality
and excellence in care.
I think it's something all of us strive to provide.
Next slide.
The Joint Commission accreditation also has some external value.
It really enhances your brand and reputation.
Accreditation with The Joint Commission sets you apart from your competition.
The Joint Commission is recognized as the leader in patient safety.
This is a result of our comprehensive approach to safety,
our collaborative accreditation experience
that is paired with unmatched expertise and resources,
not only to prepare you for your initial accreditation
but maintaining ongoing readiness and compliance with the standards.
Our framework and approach fosters better outcomes,
improved safety,
and success with business relationships.
Next slide.
Simply put, we asked our organizations, those that have joined us today,
how has The Joint Commission accreditation
made a positive impact on your organization?
We will provide each organization a little bit of time
to share that with you,
and we'll start with Crossroads Health,
with Amber Thomas and Sue Tager.
Amber and Sue, can you tell us a little bit about Crossroads Health,
your roles and relationship with The Joint Commission?
(Amber) Sure. We will be glad to.
I'll kick us off, and then Sue, feel free to jump in where I'm lacking.
(laughs)
We are an integrative health organization
in northeast Ohio,
and we provide mental health and substance use,
and in the past year, we've added primary care services.
I'm here today with Sue Tager
who is the Site Director at New Directions,
which is our substance use residential facility
in Cuyahoga County in Cleveland,
which also has outpatient services as well
and intensive outpatient, specifically for adolescents.
Susan, anything you'd like to add about your role?
(Susan) No, I think I would only say
that between Crossroads
and the service line here at New Directions,
we've been surveyed at least over 20 times over the years,
and I've participated in 10 of them as a Direct Service Provider
as well as Director of Quality Improvement.
(Amber) Yeah, I think over the last several years
since I've been at Crossroads Health, I've been here for over 20 years,
and Sue, I know you've been at New Directions
for just as long, if not longer, probably. (laughs)
And when New Directions and Crossroads Health first came together
as an affiliated organization,
I believe that's when Crossroads Health-- our legacy was just Crossroads--
we first kind of switched over into Joint Commission.
I believe that was probably about 14 or 15 years ago.
And we've continued since
and subsequently have had a merger with another organization
that was here, in northeast Ohio.
We moved from being an affiliated organization
to a merged organization with New Directions
in just the last few months.
But as you noted, yes, we've had opportunities
to participate in a lot of different surveys
and benefited
from seeing The Joint Commission accreditation.
(Colette) So lots of experience.
Over the years, and as you've evolved,
what do you see as the benefits of accreditation
with The Joint Commission for your organization?
(Amber) One of the things that really first came to my mind,
in part because I am...
As a Direct Service Provider and as a Clinical Supervisor,
my wheelhouse in my area of specialization is trauma
and providing trauma-informed care.
And over the years, as we have merged and we've gotten bigger,
I think, in the last five years, I think we've grown,
but maybe four years, we've grown about 200%
and about 40% of that has been in the last year or two.
What we've seen is needing to have a way
to bring together very different cultures
as we've grown,
and needing to figure out how to redefine something as new
and to make space for something new.
And so, we've used trauma-informed care
as kind of the umbrella of how we hope to be
and what we hope our culture reflects.
And I think the first thing that came to mind
is that with Joint Commission,
there is such a focus on safety.
And a lot of components,
and even the last survey that we went through,
a lot of focus on being trauma-informed with the people that we serve.
And just that kind of golden thread
that has always been there to help us stay focused on what's most important
that the people that we're serving are safe
and that we're providing not just a physically safe environment
but also an emotionally safe environment,
not just for the people that we're serving
but also for our staff, for ourselves.
And that's something
that I think has helped us keep an eye
on what really should be a priority
and has really dovetailed nicely with the culture that we're hoping to have
across all of our services and different sites that we have.
Sue, would you want to add anything to that?
(Susan) Yeah, I think one of the things
with looking through another person's eyes,
we talk a lot about trauma-informed care,
and having a Joint Commission surveyor here several days,
you really get to see it through somebody else's eyes,
and we can't see it all the time and those sorts of things.
So when you asked about how, it's really about collaborating.
I have found the collaboration with the surveyors
to be a great experience.
It really makes me think through how we do things, why we do things,
how do we maybe change things.
It gives an opportunity to really explore new ideas.
I've always loved when surveys have come and shared new information.
Maybe it's a treatment plan, and we all know about treatment plans.
Maybe it's a different look.
Another organization does it maybe a little different
and how can that take us to a higher level of quality and safety.
And certainly, during our last survey during COVID,
that was just so critical for all of us to keep providing services
and hear what other places are doing,
not just in northeast Ohio
but how are things going in Florida, or New York or the West Coast.
I think it just really brings a whole lot of information to you
at your organization,
with the focus being on your staff, your clients,
your family members who are involved in care.
It really is very collaborative.
I guess that's what I would like to add, Amber.
(Amber) Yeah.
And I think that's--
the last bullet point there, that opportunities of the survey
is really...
That process that really is collaborative, it's not necessarily prescriptive.
A lot of times, we would sit down during our survey
and it becomes a conversation or a dialogue.
And if we have a specific challenge
or we're trying to figure out
how do we really improve in this area, given...
All of our organizations tend to be really complex.
Our organization is one that has a lot of different payer sources,
a lot of different funders
that require a lot of different types of information,
and it starts to feel sometimes
that we're getting really administratively burdened
in terms of the paperwork
or how many things that we're pushing onto our providers.
And I have found that through the surveys
that we are often, Sue, just like you said,
able to hear how are other people doing
and how can we streamline this.
How can we make it not be something that becomes too big,
as we sometimes have a tendency to overthink things.
And that can be a problem.
I think that also trickles through to that second bullet point,
of flexibility,
to identify our own processes and procedures
to ensure client care.
Going back again to being collaborative,
and there's a standard that needs to be met,
but there's not necessarily a specific way that it needs to be met.
We had the ability to identify, in many cases, what works for us,
what is our process going to be and our procedure,
and how are we going to demonstrate that we're following that.
And that has been much more helpful than, I think, in previous years,
my experience prior to Joint Commission
where there were a lot of standards
and there was a prescribed way that you had to do it,
and it didn't necessarily fit.
And so, that ability to collaborate
and to have a little bit of individualization
within the parameters of what the standards are
and really focus on safety and quality has really been helpful as well.
And I think, Sue, is there anything else that you would add?
(Sue)I think that covers it,
unless, Colette, if you had any more questions
or hear from other panelists, that seems to work for me.
(Colette) I was struggling to get myself off mute, but...
(Amber laughs)
No. Thank you so much, Amber and Sue.
I really appreciate your viewpoints and your experience
and sharing them here today.
Let's move on to our next panelist, Nick.
Nick, can you tell us a little more about PursueCare,
your role there and relationship with TJC?
(Nick) Sure, happy to.
And thanks for having me on.
PursueCare... my background, I'm a Healthcare attorney,
I've been working in healthcare my entire career,
and a past life is doing risk and compliance
and working with health systems.
I have a lot of experience on and off throughout my career
with working with Joint Commission.
With PursueCare, PursueCare is a new organization.
We launched in late 2019, early 2020.
We are a virtual first substance use disorder treatment
and behavioral health providers.
What that means is that we lead with virtual outpatient services.
Most of our patients predominantly see us through a smartphone app
that we've developed for care.
And we provide a whole array of comprehensive outpatient services.
We do medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder
and other substance use disorders.
We provide counseling and therapy, both one-to-one and group.
We do psychiatric care,
and then we also have an in-house pharmacy and case management.
So we provide a pretty comprehensive set of services,
but we deliver it almost entirely virtually
and in working in collaboration
with places that act as a front door for patients in need
of the types of services we provide.
Those include health systems and hospitals
and community health centers, predominantly.
So it's kind of a unique offering that we have,
and we started it just before the COVID-19 pandemic.
We did not predict that we would go into that
in March of 2020.
It's been a wild ride since then.
(Colette) I know you've grown quite a bit since you started.
What would you say the positive impacts of accreditation have been for PursueCare?
(Nick) The biggest thing, before we even started this,
when it really was just a concept
based on some of the needs
that I was seeing and in past experience that were not being met.
We felt as we went into this, our management team--
we're not tech first, we're healthcare first people
that are using technology to solve problems.
And so, we felt that it was really important,
as we went into this,
to operate with a high degree of clinical excellence
and a focus on good, solid policies and procedures
and ways of doing things,
especially because our plan was always to be able to offer our services
across a number of different states.
And for those who work in behavioral health
and specifically in substance use treatment,
you know that...
there's 50 states and 50 sets of regulations and requirements,
and you always want to be operating for...
to meet the most of those possible in one specific way,
as opposed to running your practice
five different ways for five different states.
And so, The Joint Commission, the process of getting accredited
and also the learning and training that we do along the way with our teams
has really helped to standardize our approach
and meet most of those requirements.
The other thing that I would add is for a new organization
in an emerging space, virtual health,
where there is scrutiny
with best practices and how to do it,
there's also a level of... kind of paving a new path
or being an innovator and the first through.
It really helps to have Joint Commission Accreditation
and be able to communicate with other existing
or traditional healthcare infrastructure about what we do.
And all I mean by that
is that when we walk into a hospital in the health system
and we say that we want to collaborate with them
to provide transitional programs,
let's say, for patients that are going through an emergency room visit
and trying to navigate what comes next,
at discharge planning.
It's absolutely vital
that we can walk the walk and talk the talk,
and having Joint Commission accreditation
is kind of a badge of reliability and credibility
when you walk into a hospital and you want to work with them.
So that was really extremely important for us.
I'd say that the last thing that I want to add
is that for a young and growing organization,
kind of fast-moving through the past couple of years,
we're constantly adding more people, more resources,
we're expanding to try to meet the needs of patients
and our collaborative health partners.
I view Joint Commission accreditation and the things that come with it
as a way to focus and align us
on our mission, vision, and core values,
and kind of keep that at the forefront of what we're doing.
It's very easy to think about growth
as the primary driver for how you operate a healthcare practice.
But truly, the primary driver for growth and sustainable growth and durability
is having really sound, clinical procedures
and core values
that The Joint Commission helps us to advance.
I think that that's really, really important for our practice
and what we're doing.
It served that purpose well over the past year and a half or so.
(Colette) Great, Nick. Anything else you'd like to add?
(Nick) Yeah. Last but not least,
I like participating in webinars
and seminars like this
because it gives us an opportunity to share our story and what we do,
and think about new ways to deliver patient-centric healthcare.
And if that helps to rub off on other organizations
that are looking to innovate, break down barriers and increase access
for at-risk populations that we serve, then that's a great outcome.
And so I think, again,
involvement in The Joint Commission has opened those doors
obviously here today.
But with other organizations being able to advance best practices
and talk about those things with some degree of authority
because we're in it and we're doing it,
and we're trying our best to continuously improve.
And I think... having that backbone of Joint Commission accreditation
has helped with that.
And we see that a lot of other organizations sometimes
are turning to us now to say,
"Hey, what are you doing and how are you doing it,
and how are you getting there in this new virtual or hybrid care paradigm?"
The fact that we have a culture of continuous improvement
and continuously trying to improve on what we do,
I hope will help to rub off on other organizations
that are looking to pave their own path with virtual care.
(Colette) Great. Thank you so much, Nick.
Next slide.
We'll go on to our next presenter, Cheryl, from Saint Francis Ministries.
Cheryl, can you tell us a little bit about Saint Francis Ministries,
your role and your relationship with The Joint Commission?
(Cheryl) Absolutely.
Also, thank you for the opportunity to present
because I love talking about Saint Francis and I love talking about Joint Commission,
and to me, they are inextricably linked.
Saint Francis has been around since 1945.
We're a complex behavioral health, child welfare organization.
We were three residentials when I started in 1978.
Saint Francis actually started in 1945.
But currently, at this point,
we are in six states, we have about 1,600 staff.
We're in Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
We do residential for kids, psychiatric residential.
We have probably 1,500 foster care homes.
We do adoption.
We have in-home prevention programs,
family preservation and Family First.
We also have contracts in Kansas and Nebraska
for out-of-home child welfare work.
We are the contractors for the out-of-home kids.
We provide outpatient substance use mental health,
and we also have, down in Mississippi,
an adult IDD residential and supported employment program.
And those are very different from each other.
I'm currently our Chief Clinical Officer.
I joined Saint Francis in 1978, so I've been here for 44 years.
When I came in '78, we had been accredited for four years.
We've been accredited for 48+ years.
And I think that the thing I remember the most
was when I started as a young social worker,
the emphasis of my learning immediately
that we were Joint Commission accredited
because we wanted to make sure
we were providing excellent services to our clients
as well as being excellent with our staff.
And then, my other connection would also be since 2003,
I've been on a couple of different advisory boards with TJC,
and the amazing part of being able to weigh in on standard development
and improving practices,
because most organizations have become more complex
and not a single service provider.
That would be our connection with Joint Commission.
(Colette) Great, Cheryl.
Over the years that you've seen,
what can you tell us about
how The Joint Commission has had a positive impact
on Saint Francis Ministries?
(Cheryl) As we asked these questions,
I thought, "I'm going to focus on something that's very non-social worky
but I think is so important."
The use of metrics and data to evaluate the excellence
in the provision of the services and the opportunities to improve,
I think because of our Joint Commission relationship,
we really focus on using metrics to do that evaluation.
We want to make sure we're taking the guesswork out of...
Making sure we're not fixing the wrong problem
and that we're actually going in the right directions.
We have a really robust CQI program at the program level,
so while we do all these different services,
there's no question that the process, in terms of evaluation,
has standardization.
Each program has their own meetings,
but then we have quarterly performance reviews
where the directors actually brief out the senior leaders
on how they're doing
and their metrics and outcomes with the clients,
how they're doing in these same metrics with the workforce,
financial information,
and what the state and other accrediting licensing audits are showing.
And then that feeds right up into the senior leaders
and the quality council
in terms of evaluating the client services,
all the safety pieces, our workforce, our customer care.
And then feeding right on up to the board
so that there's this clear thread throughout the entire organization
around quality.
And as part of that,
we are also evaluating
do our clients feel that their functioning is improving,
their resilience is improving,
and do they see us as a trauma-responsive organization?
That's all threaded through there.
I think about when Amber and Sue were talking about trauma-informed,
how are we looking at...
do our clients actually feel that that's happening?
That is a thread throughout all of that.
And then another value is the whole chapter on leadership
and assuring that staff have what they need
to do the work that we're asking them to do.
And that is another value-added piece
that has the leadership really looking at...
"Are we leading?" and "What do we look like?"
and "Are we a culture of doing the right thing
at the right time for the right reason, even when no one's looking?"
And we really like that part that that brings to the organization.
And I think just...
Nick talked about that whole higher standard piece.
One of the things that Joint Commission has brought as another value-added
is the entire mock survey process.
We have that built into the entire organization
so that it supports having staff be survey-ready at any time,
not this "Every three year
let's clean your house for your guest that's coming to visit."
We wanted it to have a permeated culture that providing excellence in care
is constantly there.
We actually have 46 staff engaged in as surveyors
across the organization.
We do every year our own opening and closing
and utilizing all the tracer activities
because many of the programs are serving the same clients and handoffs,
and so it helps do that tracer activity.
I think the other value that Joint Commission brings
in terms of that higher standard are the conferences
and all of the support pieces that come in terms of looking at your organization
to see that you're actually accomplishing those.
I think I already mentioned, last but not least,
is that we have a seat at the table to provide input
on what standards lead to improve services for all the different types of services
that we provide across the organization.
And those are the types of things I think of
when I think about the value add
that Joint Commission brings to the organization.
And possibly, I would add to that, regardless of what state we're in,
the minute they find out
that we are accredited by Joint Commission,
I believe that it changes how they see us
when they're licensing us
because they know that we're already focused
on being an excellent organization.
(Colette) Cheryl...
(Cheryl) Yeah.
(Colette) Cheryl, thanks.
So neat to hear about your mock survey process
throughout your organization.
But thank you so very much.
Next.
Last but not least,
our final Peer Perspective today will be given by Brian Rogers,
who's the Director of Quality at Embark.
Brian, can you tell us a little bit about Embark
and your role and your relationship with the Joint Commission?
(Brian) Yes, thank you.
Embark Behavioral Health is a full continuum of care.
We are nationwide with residential treatment centers,
outpatient clinics,
short-term residential, long-term residential.
We also have young adults in transitional living.
Our first residential treatment center was New Haven in Utah,
and it was in 1995 and first accredited with Joint Commission in 1996.
Since then, we have grown in a different location
and really created the name Embark Behavioral Health in 2018,
when we decided to really come together with one goal in mind
and that is to lead the way in reducing suicide, anxiety, and depression
in adolescents and young adults.
We really saw this as a key focus,
and in 2021,
we got our system accreditation with The Joint Commission.
And that system accreditation with The Joint Commission
has really been able to push us forward
and allow us to see the organization as a whole,
something that wasn't able to be done
whenever we were accredited in individual locations, one at a time.
(Colette) Thanks, Brian.
From your perspective, I know you've had...
you've had a single organization accreditation,
now going for system accreditation.
For those of you that don't know,
the system accreditation is for a larger entity,
20 or more sites that can go through one survey process,
and have one accreditation covering all of those.
But from your perspective,
what would you say the benefits of accreditation with Joint Commission
have been for Embark throughout these years?
I would first start with that system accreditation.
I first started going through the accreditation process
a number of years ago, about 14 years ago.
I went through my first survey with The Joint Commission
at one single site,
and as valuable as that is, seeing how that site's going,
when we did our system accreditation,
we were able to spend two weeks with four surveyors
looking at 35 different sites,
and really being able to see
not just where we may not be doing something well at one site,
but being able to see within the organization
maybe something that is a system issue.
And that's really helped improve us.
One of the other things in the system accreditation
that's been so important for us
is we want to grow this continuum of care
and specifically in our outpatient clinics,
our outpatient or short-term clinics or insurance base,
and trying to build a...
as we lead the way in reducing a serious issue
in our adolescent and young adult population,
we want to make sure that these resources are available.
The system creation allows us to open up new clinics,
and once those new clinics are opened up,
be able to allow them to be accredited quicker
using our systems that are already in place
and that accreditation really gives...
People respect that and understand that
and know that's a level of quality
that they're going to get good treatment and good services
at those new locations.
(Colette) Anything else you'd add, Brian, that would be sort of the benefits?
(Brian) I think the alignment throughout the organization,
as you have more and more sites and more and more leaders,
some of them that have been with the organization for a long time,
some of them, of course, that are newly brought into the organization,
having something like The Joint Commission that is...
You have a language, a set of expectations
that is standard and is shared,
and then you have, whether it be outside the accreditors
or things that we share from The Joint Commission,
you have this one set aligned understanding
of what's expected.
Something as simple as the National Patient Safety Goal 15
about suicide assessment and risk.
This is something that's very important to us,
but having those standards
and the specific things that you need to do,
then being able to measure each one of our clinics
and our residential treatment centers
and our behavioral health organization,
against that, it's been extremely helpful
in making sure that we're providing that quality care that is expected.
(Colette) Great. Thank you so much, Brian.
Next slide.
I think, as Melinda, when we sent out invites,
you said they'd be plenty of time for questions.
So I'm going to turn this back over to Melinda
to discuss any questions that have been submitted,
and feel free to continue to submit, so it looks some have come up.
(Melinda) Thank you very much, Colette.
As a reminder to everyone, you can submit questions today
by typing your questions into the questions pane
in the control panel.
Also, if you're looking for a copy of the slides,
please see the handout pane of that same control panel.
Our first question today...
is "Will the presenters' contact information
be posted somewhere?"
And the answer is yes, it will be on our next to last slide
that we will get to in a moment.
Our next question is
"Has anyone had experience with CARF,
and if so, how does The Joint Commission compare?"
Can anyone answer that one?
(Nick) I'm happy to give some perspective.
I've worked with different organizations.
PursueCare has not gone for CARF directly,
in part because I think, initially, at least, our virtual health focus
was not really a great fit with CARF,
where a lot of what the focus is there
is on facility standards for providing care.
And sometimes, I think that that is important,
certainly for facility-based organizations where, for instance,
if you're a true inpatient residential program,
there are a lot of standards and practices that you have to put in place
to meet any types of survey requirements or licensing requirements
with the state that you're in.
And I do think that CARF can help to get an organization there.
I don't think that it's one or the other, I should make that point.
I think that they both can go together.
I think that we get PursueCare
and some of the past organizations I've been involved with...
We get, generally speaking,
more value out of Joint Commission accreditation
in terms of advancing clinical excellence
and our focus on the mission and core values of how we deliver care.
I think that that's maybe the biggest fundamental difference.
CARF certainly does have standards for delivery of care, clinical practices,
and things of that nature,
but I feel that Joint Commission is more aligned
in terms of strategies for delivering the best care possible
for the population that we treat
for continuous improvement and advancement
of the types of techniques that we use
and certainly for outcomes-driven care
where we're focused on measuring the success
of the care that we're delivering,
and measuring, obviously, the improvement in health
for any conditions that we're treating with patients.
That's where I think The Joint Commission, for us,
is kind of a greater value
for the type of organization that we're trying to be.
(Melinda) Thank you very much, I appreciate your perspective on that.
Our next question is
"With such pressing workforce issues with staff retention and recruitment,
has accreditation had an impact on these issues
in any of your organizations?"
(Susan) It's Sue Tager from Crossroads New Directions.
I would say, although recently
with those sorts of issues with retention,
I think it goes back to the safety and quality piece.
I know working in residential and also with our outpatient
that staff want to feel just as safe as the clients do,
and I think really knowing
that we hold ourselves to higher standards,
really take a look at incidents when they do occur,
how can we improve and get better
and make it as safe as possible in our agencies
really has helped us to attract people.
Especially the last two, three years with COVID,
we have not had much turnover, which is surprising.
But again, how we're trying to be as safe as you can
in a difficult service line.
And that is, with residential treatment, it can be very challenging.
I think Joint Commission really has helped us
in we can say safety and quality,
the Gold Seal, explaining why it's so important.
(Melinda) Fantastic. Thank you very much for that.
Our next question is
"If an agency is considering a merger or acquisition,
is accreditation a good idea or should it be delayed until afterwards?"
(Nick) This is Nick.
I would say that accreditation is a good idea,
and I don't think there's any reason to delay it.
And from my experience,
Joint Commission has been very accommodating
to changes in how you practice
or mergers and acquisitions and how do we leave that in
for existing accreditation.
I would say
if you think it's the best thing to do for your organization, go for it,
no real reason to wait.
(Cheryl) I was--
(Brian) This is Brian--
(Melinda) We're all going to chime in, go ahead.
(Cheryl) Sorry, I was going to-- This Cheryl, obviously.
I was just going to agree with Nick that any time we've acquired, added,
whatever, however it happened,
we always immediately...
In fact, some of them required that we be accredited,
but we always immediately went to Joint Commission accreditation,
and it was great for the staff of those programs
to immediately get immersed in it
and to see the importance
of how that was going to move the success of their program forward.
I would just add that little caveat.
(Brian) Yeah, and for myself, when we acquire organizations
that are Joint Commission accredited,
we're, of course, going to bring them into our system accreditation.
Being able to look at the previous surveys,
it gives us a head up-- head start
on understanding what some of the issues might be
that we need to overcome.
It just kind of gives us a head start on our due diligence.
(Susan) I was just going to add that recently,
New Directions and Crossroads did officially merge,
and having been Joint Commission accredited,
it was easy, very helpful in understanding what do we need to do
to merge things on The Joint Commission standard side,
and application, and website and all those sort of things.
And also gave us some insight into some things to look for
as we're moving towards that, or as we were moving towards that,
which started on July 1st.
So it's all gone very well.
(Melinda) Good to hear.
Thank you all for your comments on that one.
And the next question is
"What resources besides the manual do you use to prepare for the survey?"
(Cheryl) This is Cheryl talking again.
I referenced the mock survey process before,
and it's separate from the manual.
There is actually a guidebook for it.
And then there's some individual tracer resources we've used.
Going to the annual Behavioral Healthcare Conference
actually has available some of those pieces.
There are so... I could go on forever,
there are so many resources that can be accessed,
and we use all of those to help us prepare.
But we don't just prepare for the moment of the survey,
we're preparing all the time.
- (Amber) I would echo some-- - (Brian) This is Brian.
(Amber) Sorry, Brian. Go ahead.
(Brian) I was just going to say, we use a lot of the resources.
We also use the software, the tracers with AMP
and the mock survey software,
which has been key for me where I can assign out
follow-up items to our mock surveys.
And then we also use the poly source--
our policy source that give some of the best examples
of policies to meet The Joint Commission standards.
And it really just feels like it's a head start
on seeing what some of the best is out there,
to make sure that we're aligned with that.
(Amber) And this is Amber from Crossroads Health.
I would echo some of the same that we do from time to time,
not just waiting until the survey
but do some of our own mock tracers.
And anytime we have something new
that we have to put in play,
we're always going to the standards
and saying how does it fit in with what works, what we currently do,
how might we need to tweak things.
We're often also going back
and looking at how can we continue
to make things more efficient and more impactful.
I think that's one of our ongoing performance improvement
that we're always doing
in consultation with The Joint Commission standards.
(Nick) One quick thing I'll add-- this is Nick with PursueCare--
is since we're newer as an organization and in our accreditation,
we're going back to our original survey
and fact-checking ourselves and saying,
"Did we really work hard to put in place the areas of improvement
that we needed to
in credible auditing against that as a first step?"
The other thing that I think is valuable to do
is make sure to point other...
You don't just want one person in your organization
that's a master of the survey process
or of some of the policies and procedures.
You want it to really be spread out
amongst a variety of different people in different departments
so that they can maintain at a high standard
and step in when needed.
So we try to get all those resources out in our training materials
so that we have multiple people
that are very adept at some of the things that we've just talked about.
(Susan) Sue Tager here, I would add that it's not just the manual,
that's the beauty in my eyes of Joint Commission.
It is so many resources of different sorts and kinds,
whether you want to read about something,
you can call up and talk to engineers.
If it's something about your building and facility, having done that many times.
It really is there's a whole lot of resources on the back end.
So it's not just the manual,
there's people and literature and research that you can learn from
and pose questions to without even fear of saying:
"Oh. Well, I did meet the standard" or "They're going to come and survey."
They want to make you a better agency just as much as you want to be one.
(Melinda) Thank you very much.
Our next question is
"Are there any other clinical benefits resulting from your accreditation?"
(Cheryl) I'm going to try and attempt to answer it
from our perspective.
In terms of clinical, I feel like we're often--
that whole challenge of how do you really...
Besides outcomes that you identify, how do you know clinically
that your clients feel like they've improved
in their functionality, their resilience, their protective factors?
And I feel like Joint Commission challenges us to go beyond
and really evaluate that.
We have partnered with a local university
between the repeated measures and an impact survey that we developed
that they speak to each other.
It has helped us to take an evaluation
of are our assessments, are our treatment plans
really client-driven,
versus us-driven?
And then taking all of that and looking at it
and saying, "Are we getting to where we need to be?"
It's been so fun looking at the results of our repeated measures
and our impact surveys to see,
"Wow, we might be doing better than we even thought we were!"
if that makes any sense.
(Melinda) Fantastic.
At this time, we don't have any more questions.
Unless somebody wants to make some final changes--
comments, sorry,
I'll turn it back over to Colette.
And next slide.
(Colette) Thank you, Melinda.
As we wrap up our webinar today,
you can access this webinar and other webinar replays
on our on-demand resource page,
and the hyperlink is in there when you download the slides.
If you have questions or anything,
feel free to contact us via phone or email.
We also provide the links to our website, and check us out on social media.
Next slide.
A big thank you again to our panelists today.
Really appreciate you sharing your perspectives and experience,
and again, taking time out of your very busy days.
I know it's hard, but we really appreciate you.
You'll see their contact information via email
as well as hyperlinks to their websites.
Next slide.
And here is our Behavioral Health Care and Human Services Accreditation Team
with our contact information.
Again, here's another way that you can contact us
with questions or any information you may want from us.
We thank you...
Next slide.
Thank you all so much for joining us today,
and we hope you will join us again for future webinars,
and have a great afternoon.
(Melinda) And just as a reminder,
you will receive a short survey after the webinar closes,
and we'd appreciate it
if you provide your feedback on today's presentation for us.
And, as I said before, you'll receive an email later
with a copy of the slides
and a link to view the replay of today's webinar.
We hope you found it valuable,
and we really do thank you for your time today.
On behalf of the Joint Commission,
have a great rest of your day, and this concludes our presentation.