January 2025 Newsletter

In the News This Month

Happy New Year, Everyone!

We hope you had a wonderful holiday and are as excited as we are to welcome 2025.

This month our feature article, "Staffing Shortages and Strategies to Prevent Them," written by Denise Smith, Head of Consulting & Senior Consultant, focuses on the continuing staffing deficiencies in healthcare, outlining key aspects of these shortages while providing strategies to address them.

However, due in part to continued staffing shortages in healthcare, this issue has prompted a rise in a new type of service across the healthcare industry; Virtual Nursing. Chris Pratt, Senior Consultant & Accredited Provider Program Director's article, "Virtual Nursing Regulatory Compliance Considerations,“ acknowledges the benefits of virtual care, but also highlights the potential vulnerabilities in delivering safe patient care. The article suggests strategies to consider for implementing a successful virtual program model.

Thank you for taking the time to read our articles. We hope this information is helpful in assisting you with accreditation and regulatory compliance needs. If you have any suggestions for future topics or require our services, please reach out to us at info@courtemanche-assocs.com. Our team is always available and eager to assist you in any way we can.

Group of nurses and doctors conferring in a hospital

Jan 7 2025

Staffing Shortages and Strategies to Prevent Them
Staffing in healthcare organizations refers to the process of hiring and managing professionals to provide high-quality patient care in a variety of healthcare settings.  A shortage of healthcare workers, particularly nurses and physicians, leads to high burnout rates, increased workload for remaining staff, potential patient safety risks, and overall decreased ...
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The Authors

Denise Smith, RN, BS, MS, CLNC, HACP-CMS

Denise Smith is Head of Consulting & a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche & Associates. In this role she is responsible for assessing healthcare organizational readiness for licensing, certification, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. She has extensive knowledge in the requirements of The Joint Commission, DNV, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services including knowledge in their survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination. She also has knowledge and experience in AAAHC and other regulatory and accreditation organizations. She assists organizations with survey preparation, educational needs, post survey activities, patient safety strategies and quality improvement initiatives. Denise has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in Infection Prevention, Sterile Processing, Legal Nurse Consulting, Quality and Resource Management, Clinical Education, in acute inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Denise Smith
nurse meeting with patient virtually

Jan 7 2025

Virtual Nursing Regulatory Compliance Considerations
During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, organizations developed a number of innovations to maintain services while protecting staff from unnecessary exposure risk.  The most common innovation was the use of virtual staffing models that utilized various forms of technology to support and maintain staff engagement with work.   While the risk ...
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The Authors

Christopher Pratt, MS, BSN, HACP

Chris Pratt is a Senior Consultant with Courtemanche and Associates with more than 33 years in clinical and leadership experience working in varying healthcare positions from the bedside to the Boardroom. In this role, he is responsible for assessing healthcare organizations’ readiness for licensing, accreditation, and regulatory compliance. He is trained in the survey process, auditing approach and survey outcome determination utilized by The Joint Commission, DNV, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and other regulatory agencies and accrediting organizations. He assists organizations with post-survey activities, education, patient safety strategies, and quality improvement initiatives and has experience in various health care settings including acute care, behavioral health, and ambulatory care settings.

Courtemanche & Associates Healthcare Consultant Chris Pratt
Tri logos Sayas Alliance parent company and sub division companies.

C&A is a division of SAYAS Alliance. Through our sister company Medical Resources Network, we also offer a range of legal nurse consulting services, including medical record review and analysis, medical chronologies, peer review, retention of medical experts, and adverse event and call center management. Learn more.

Disclaimer: The information on this website is published in good faith for general information purposes only. This website does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information.

The Joint Commission® is a registered trademark of Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Courtemanche & Associates has no affiliation with this entity.

Courtemanche & Associates | (704)-573-4535 | Email: info@courtemanche-assocs.com

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