Richmond accreditation team goes “You Tube”

Have you heard the term “Tracer” in conversations about accreditation, but haven’t the faintest idea what it means?  Do you wonder how surveyors evaluate our practices around the accreditation requirements?

Accreditation is going YouTube-style with a 15-minute video on what to expect during a site visit, which explains all about what tracers are.

In a tracer, surveyors follow the path of a patient or a particular process (for example, medication administration) through its various steps, and interview staff who are involved. There is no studying required for a tracer; it is about showing the things we do every day.

Even better, a tracer is also a handy quality improvement tool that teams can use to find out where their processes and handoffs are working well, and where they could be made more robust, from the lens of the patient’s journey.  It can help firm up action plans, track progress over time, and validate the way we practice.

Are you a more hands-on learner instead?  Contact Michael McAuley or Serena Bertoli-Haley to book a tracer practice session (also known as a “mock tracer”) in your area.

We will walk you through choosing a patient file, and re-tracing that patient’s journey through care (hence the term “tracer”), interviewing front line staff from the different disciplines and roles that were involved in each step, much like a surveyor would during the site visit.

A mock-tracer can be done through observation of a typical day for your area, taking only a few minutes of each staff’s time. At the end, we will provide feedback on what we observed, as well as some tips and ideas for how your team can use mock-tracers as a tool going forward.