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The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is calling and conducting visits to hospitals that it has identified through a new hospital dashboard it is using internally. CDPH is reiterating that this dashboard focuses on hospitals currently experiencing surges and most likely to experience them.
CDPH’s goal with these calls and visits is to provide support to hospitals that are currently experiencing, or may soon experience, patient surges or staffing or personal protective equipment resource needs. In addition, if CDPH has not yet conducted an infection control survey of the hospital on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CDPH will also conduct that.
The Governor’s Executive Order of March 15 directs CDPH to focus on providing technical assistance and support to health care facilities. It also limits its enforcement activity to allegations of the most serious violations impacting health and safety. CDPH is still operating under this Executive Order.
In addition, CDPH, is following current CMS guidance, issued June 1, which authorizes State Survey Agencies like CDPH to conduct these surveys: Immediate Jeopardy, Focused Infection Control, and Initial Certification. That guidance also authorizes CDPH to conduct complaint investigations that are triaged as Non-Immediate Jeopardy-High and revisit surveys of any facility with removed Immediate Jeopardy (but still out of compliance).
CHA has requested that CDPH release an All-Facilities Letter to communicate with hospitals about its survey activity, including its new internal hospital dashboard and calls and visits; this is currently under consideration by CDPH.