Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently updated a memo to its survey teams on reducing the risk of Legionella to specifically require facilities to have a water management plan that surveyors can review, according to an article on the Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare website.

A water management plan begins with the facilities management team and a solid risk assessment of the water distribution and storage systems, which must include a walk-through of the healthcare facility with the onsite plumbing expert.

That plan should be written and managed by a multidisciplinary committee, according to Bryan Connors, MS, CIH, HEM, the Healthcare Practice Director at Environmental Health & Engineering Inc., in Newton, Mass. 

The CMS memo, which was first published last year and then updated this June, continues to point to the ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 188 “Legionellosis: Risk Management for Building Water Systems” and best practices set out by a 2016 CDC toolkit on developing a water management program to reduce the growth and spread of Legionella in buildings as key resources, the article said.

Read the article.