Preparing for an unannounced JCAHO survey

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The hospital preparing for an unannounced JCAHO survey has many resources available to help them. The JCAHO website itself offers the following suggestions ^[1] to help a hospital prepare for a triennial survey:

Read the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals (CAMH).
Attend seminars to help you understand the standards.
Network with colleagues from hospitals that have recently gone through the accreditation process.
Ensure that staff understand how to comply with the standards. The surveyors will interview staff members to see how well they understand your processes.
Use the scoring guidelines in the CAMH to conduct a mock survey.
Review the results of your mock survey with your staff. Develop a plan to correct the problems you found and set priorities for improvement.
The best way to prepare for a survey is to incorporate the standards requirements into your daily activities. By continuously improving your hospital's processes, you can improve existing methods and correct problems before they become serious.

Preparing your staff for JCAHO, through repeated tracers and other educational methods, is the surest way to put your best foot forward.
The morning of the survey will have it's share of stressors; here is some advice and some experiences to alleviate them.

JCAHO held an Unannounced Surveys for Hospitals Teleconference. Click on the title to see a summary of that call. See some size-specific information from the above call at a small hospital's experiences with JCAHO, a medium hospital's experiences with JCAHO, and a large hospital's experiences with JCAHO.

1 Rumors
2 Random advice
3 Related links
4 References and resources

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Rumors

These are unverified rumors - use the comment field if you have information about any of them!

They don't seem to be doing postdischarge calls.
They are surveying earlier than expected (i.e. triennial survey date).
The surveyors aren't looking at unapproved abbreviations (false).
Life Safety surveys are very challenging.

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Random advice

If evidence of an error is found, put out APB to staff to make sure it's the only one of it's kind.
To comply with the public notice requirement, include information in the patient's rights brochure and post it on the internet site.
Evaluate the schedule for feasibility, especially in smaller hospitals where one individual has many responsibilities. Make sure they're not required to be in more than one place at a time.
About 50% of outpatient sites will be visited.
Know who would be able to access HR records and credentialing records if some of your vital leadership is not present for the on-site survey.

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