Inspection Testing and Maintenance (ITM) Fire Drill and 1135 Requests — ASHE's Response
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American Society for Health Care Engineering
There has been a number of question regarding Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance (ITM) during this pandemic. We have also received questions regarding fire drills. ASHE is currently working with CMS and the various accrediting organizations to develop national guidance on these issues. In the interim, we will provide you with a template that was developed with input from TJC, that will provide you with some relief from these requirements until such time national guidance is provided.
Across the country, state hospital associations have been making similar request on behalf of their members, but unfortunately, these request did not typically include details on ITM or fire drill relief. We suggest that you work with your state hospital associations to include this relief in a request. As a chapter, you may want to consider making a 1135 request on behalf of all members. Additionally, if any of your members want to make a request on behalf of their own hospital, they may use the template we will provide. We will be sending this template to you by the end of the week. We wanted to bring this to your attention now, just in case your members are asking for this information or you have begun preparing a similar request.
If you have not already done so, we would also like to encourage each of you to join the MyASHE Community. A specific community was created for discussions surrounding available COVID-19 resources. This online community was created to help you connect with other health care facility leaders and business partners who offer supplies, service, or information to help you overcome challenges presented by the coronavirus crisis. Health care facility leaders are posting about the needs they have as they work to prepare physical environments (both traditional health care spaces as well as alternative spaces such as hotels) for a potential surge of patients due to COVID-19. ASHE hopes this message board will help you during this challenging time. Please visit: https://my.ashe.org/home to access the community or to sign up.
We want to continue to be your resource for trusted information. If you have questions, please feel to reach out to me at agordon@aha.org.
We are all in this together!
Avis Gordon, CEM, MMPA, DBA
Senior Staff Specialist, Chapter Relations
American Society for Health Care Engineering of the American Hospital Association
