The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) will expand the scope of the Life Safety Code specialist, effective Jan. 1, 2008, to include adding a Life Safety Code Specialist to the survey team for one day for all critical-access hospital and hospital surveys.
For hospitals and critical access hospitals with more than 750,000 square feet, Life Safety Code Specialist surveys will be extended from one day to two days in 2008.
Beginning in 2005, JCAHO added a Life Safety Code Specialist to the survey team for hospitals with 200 or more licensed beds. For hospitals with fewer than 200 beds, a member of the survey team evaluated Life Safety and all of the environment-of-care elements, as had been done before 2005 for all hospitals.
All hospitals and critical access hospitals will have a Life Safety Code Specialist as part of the survey team for one day. If the facility has more than 750,000 square feet, the survey will be extended from one day to two days.
The decision as to whether the survey will be one or two days is based solely on the square footage of the facility. If a hospital is licensed for fewer than 200 beds, but has more than 750,000 square feet, it will have the two-day survey.
The survey method used by the Life Safety Code Specialist will not change, with focus standards continuing to include EC 5.20, EC 5.40, EC 5.50,EC 7.40 and ED 7.50.
Also, under certain conditions in 2007, JCAHO might begin to include the second survey day for the Life Safety Code Specialist for organizations for with more than 750,000 square feet.
For more information, contact Tim Adams at (812) 876-8262.
