Clearly, receiving and maintaining accreditation takes a lot of work. Since compliance is often determined by measuring alignment between standards and policies, it’s important to have a system in place for showing and demonstrating compliance. Like most things, there’s an easy way and a hard way.
The hard way
The hard way is also one of the most common ways. It’s using paper, or some combination of paper and digital (email, shared drives, Dropbox, etc.), to manage the process. Let’s explore how organizations across a couple industries used to do it.
Lacey, WA Police Department
Lacey PD had a system for maintaining WASPC (Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs) accreditation, but it was complex and paper-based. To prepare for re-accreditation, they recruited three staff members to sort through the paperwork, who spent weeks digging up documents, highlighting policies and standards, labeling papers with tabs and sticky notes, and organizing files in cardboard boxes.
War Memorial Hospital
War Memorial Hospital, a 28-site healthcare network, struggled with one of DNV’s key accreditation standards—regularly reviewing and updating policies. With all the files to sort through, they often couldn’t complete it on time, which put them at risk of noncompliance and created a safety risk for nurses using outdated treatment information. The accreditation team had no system for tracking employee signatures on key documents, and even if they could, they wouldn’t know if the signed version was the most current one.
Newton, MA Police Department
While preparing for re-accreditation, Newton PD would print out physical copies of new policies and accreditation documents, send them to every bureau, and wait for the signed copies to return. If documents needed edits based on bureau feedback, the whole process restarted. This method required an overwhelming amount of paper, manpower, and time—it took a five-person team multiple 60-hour weeks to complete everything. Not only were they paying for printing, shipping, and storage of accreditation files, overtime pay was through the roof.
Georgia Southern University Health Services
GSU’s accreditation manager, Kim, was working hard but lacked the tools to work efficiently. She spent months hand typing AAAHC standards and checking them against GSU’s policies and training. Though she kept some paperwork on the university’s shared drive, maintaining it all was tedious and time-consuming.
When it was time to distribute AAAHC compliance training or continuing education material, Kim would send out emails constantly to remind staff to attend training and complete the required tests. Adding to the challenge, she didn’t have an easy way to track if everyone’s AAAHC compliance training was up-to-date or not.
The easier way
Can you relate to any of their challenges? What does your accreditation process look like? Despite being in different industries, each of these organizations have something in common. Yes, they all faced similar accreditation challenges. But more importantly, they all found a solution—a policy management platform with the ability to automatically map policies to accreditation standards.
They found PowerDMS.
“In a healthcare situation, not following the correct protocol could be the difference between life and death. With PowerDMS, the most relevant policies are up-to-date and available in all of our facilities. We did away with the three-ring binders and the old paper copies. It makes things so much easier.”
- Stephanie Pins, Accreditation Manager at War Memorial Hospital
The PowerDMS platform has policy, accreditation, and training tools, but unlike many solutions on the market today, these tools automatically connect and inform one another to save you time and money.
PowerDMS’ powerful software has helped Lacey PD, War Memorial Hospital, Newton PD, GSU Health Services, and many others attain and maintain accreditation. Could the following features and benefits help your accreditation process as well?
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Electronically attach policies and proofs of compliance to standards
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Highlight standards that need additional proofs of compliance
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Collaborate with accreditation team members via automated workflows
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Give assessors access to your proofs of compliance prior to an onsite visit
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Conduct mock assessments and remote assessments
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Receive alerts when standards need updating
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Be notified of every policy impacted by an updated standard
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Easily distribute updated policies and standards to employees
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Track read receipts and E-signatures on disseminated policies
Lacey, WA Police Department
After implementing PowerDMS, Lacey PD saved about $2,000 on administrative costs related to accreditation. They also saved two months in accreditation prep time.
War Memorial Hospital
PowerDMS helped War Memorial Hospital eliminate an estimated 40 hours in both meetings and collaboration during accreditation. Not to mention the paper, printing, and storage costs saved by securely storing their content in PowerDMS. The team at War Memorial can now rest assured that the latest version of any policy is on every computer in all of their 28 locations.
Newton, MA Police Department
Newton PD saved time and thousands of dollars thanks to PowerDMS’ training module, automatic notifications, file management, secure storage, easy accessibility, dissemination system, archiving capabilities, simple search, and more.
Georgia Southern University Health Services
When GSU Health Services first applied for AAAHC accreditation, it took Kim about two years to prepare for the self-assessment. Using the same outdated system, it would take her months to update the self-assessment each time AAAHC published standards changes. Now with PowerDMS, Kim is able to update the self-assessment within a couple weeks.
“Leadership and administrators [at ASC’s] wear so many different hats and do so many different things. PowerDMS is like a personal assistant. I wouldn't even consider taking a position in another center if they didn’t agree to get PowerDMS. It’s seriously life-changing from an administrator standpoint.”
- Chris Washick, RN, CASC, Administrator at Triangle Orthopaedic Surgery Center
