Market Education

TIER and JCAHO IM Standards

Organizations that are JCAHO accredited, or are preparing for accreditation, must carefully consider effective and efficient ways to comply with requirements of the Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (AMH) and Accreditation Manual for Behavioral Health Care Organizations (BHC). Compliance is now particularly important in response to HIPAA requirements. A comprehensive integrated software system is a vital organizational resource to collect, manages, and utilizes data for important management functions and related compliance requirements.

Sequest’s TIER® Workflow System is a comprehensive integrated software solution to meet organization management needs and accreditation compliance requirements. Sequest utilized its extensive experience (25 years and evaluation of 1700 organizations) and knowledge of JCAHO standards to determine requirements for development of the TIER® Workflow System. The JCAHO standards for on Information Management provide a solid foundation for TIER® Workflow.
Information management is one of five organizational management chapters in the AMH and BHC manuals. Information Management consists of six functions: Information Management Planning; Confidentiality and Security; Information Management Processes; Information-Based Decision-Making; Knowledge-Based Information and Client-Specific Information. These functions are fully supported in TIER® Workflow. The following summary represents a cross walk between the JCAHO Information Management functions and functionality of TIER® Workflow.

Information Management Planning requires that organizations establish a comprehensive information management planning process that addresses internal and external needs including long term (strategic) and annual (operational) needs. The planning process should also incorporate infrastructure, hardware, software applications, confidentiality and security, data management and analysis, and reporting. Most organizations include information management as a key part of their strategic and annual operational plans especially since an important planning focus now must also encompass HIPPA compliance.