CMS Revises Hospital Accreditation Program Requirements "Medications Management" Language

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revised the language for Joint Commission standards of Conditions of Participation. The agency explained the revisions, published on Dec. 19, 2013, were issued to maintain uniformity within the Leadership and Medication Management chapters applicable to hospitals and critical access hospitals. 

The revisions remove the term "polysaccharide" from the list of vaccines requiring a specific order from a doctor to administer to a patient for both hospitals and critical access hospitals. The revisions also removes "inpatient hospital care" from the element of performance criterion specifying the types of services required to be provided to patients by critical access hospitals. 

The prepublication notice applicable to hospitals is available here. The prepublication notice applicable to critical access hospitals is available here.