A new expert in regulatory standards and accreditation joins AORN Works team
By Carina Stanton
Senior News Editor
In March, Kathleen Catalano, RN, JD, FHIMSS, joined AORN Works as a consultant specializing in health care regulatory compliance with expertise in patient safety, risk management, The Joint Commission and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) preparedness, performance improvement and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Catalano has over 40 years of legal, nursing and consulting experience. As a consultant she manages complex clinical content and regulatory compliance for health care facilities and is skilled at identifying and implementing operational modifications needed to maintain quality patient care and safety.
She works with in-patient and ambulatory facilities to help them prepare, through mock surveys and other consultations, to develop policies and practices that meet regulatory and accreditation standards, including The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals.
Catalano also consults with facilities to provide guidance on Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security compliance, electronic health record management, compliance program effectiveness and health care policy changes.
As health reform plays out at the state and federal level, Catalano also sees a need for facilities to be ready and educated on the ways reform will impact their practice. “The three things both our customers and we want overall in health care are lower costs, higher quality, and increased service—this will only be achieved if we are prepared and in compliance with regulatory and accreditation standards and are looking at patient care data, such as never events,” she said.
Before joining AORN Works, Catalano served as director of health care consulting for Perot Systems Corporation, director of regulatory compliance services for PHNS, Inc., and has also worked as director of administrative projects and interim director corporate compliance at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and served as director of accreditation and regulatory systems and director of quality/risk Services for Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Catalano is a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Fellow and also serves on the HIMSS National Patient Safety Quality Outcomes Steering Committee. She has served on the Task Force for Quality for the Federation of American Health Systems and was a member of The Joint Commission’s Professional Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) for Networks and was an alternative on the Hospital PTAC. She began her career working as a perioperative nurse.
Learn more about Catalano and AORN Works.
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Read more news in the March issue of AORN Management Connections.