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About
Accreditation Now

How to use
Accreditation Now for
CARF

Documents

Training and Testing

Electronic Critical
Incident Reporting

Anonymous Surveys

Electronic Corporate
Compliance Reporting

Grievance Reporting

Job Description
Maintenance/Review

Manage Documents

Changes to Standards

Pricing

How to Use Accreditation Now for CARF

STEP 1

Set up Account

Setting up your Accreditation Now account will help automate your CARF preparation processes.

Click on Administration and select Account. Make sure your organization’s information is correct.

Passwords

Create your anonymous passwords.
The Anonymous Password is provided to personnel in order to complete personnel satisfaction surveys and corporate compliance reports.
The Community Survey Password is given to stakeholders to complete stakeholder surveys.
The Client Grievance Password is given to clients to complete a client grievance report.

Annual Review Date

Note that regardless of training due dates trainings will move to archive on your annual review date.
If you wish to set your annual review date to the calendar year select Dec. 31st.

Company Options

Select Help, at the upper right of your screen for additional information on Company Options.

Tip: You should select YES to allow personnel to view their job descriptions. This will provide the CARF required annual review for personnel. You should check YES to allow the system to send email reminders. This helps insure CARF standards timelines are met.

Select SAVE at the bottom of the page.

STEP 2

Job Description Reviews

Setting up job descriptions before setting up users, allows personnel to select their own job description when creating their user accounts. This prevents you from having to add them to each individual later. It’s easy to do and provides two reports that are required annually.

Click on Administration and select Job Descriptions.
Copy and paste your job descriptions into the text area and add a Job Title.
If you like, you can make formatting and/or content changes.
Select ADD and then I HAVE REVIEWED.

Tip: Job description templates are available in the Documents section of the website. Job description reports are located under the Management tab.

STEP 3

User Setup

Setting up user accounts for all personnel allows them to review their job descriptions, begin taking trainings and utilize the reporting functions.
The template ID and password is given to staff members to allow them to create their own unique user names and passwords.
Click on Administration and select Template User. You may change the password to something more memorable. Select SAVE.
Click on Mass Email.
Click on Setup User Account to load the template.
Add email addresses for personnel and SEND. Alternatively, you may copy the email text and send it from your company email server.

When user accounts are created you will receive an email notification. For most personnel, you need not do anything else. They have access to trainings, their job description, employee surveys, corporate compliance, critical incident and grievance reporting systems.

Members of management or administration will need additional security settings.
Click on Administration and select Add/Modify Users.
Select the individual user and Edit.
Click on the HELP button at the top, right of your screen for additional information on security settings.

Tip: Individuals are assigned permissions to view your policies, procedures and documents in the Manage Policies/Documents area of the website. Selecting Receive Documents in Security Settings, allows the individual to view and download from Accreditation Now’s Documents (templates) section. The answer keys to the trainings are located in the Documents (templates) section. Selecting Review Job Descriptions allows the individual to review all job descriptions at the management level.

STEP 4

Training — Schedule Trainings

Click on Administration and select Schedule Training.
The CARF-Series 1 and CARF-Series 2 are designed to be taken on opposite years. They do not need to be taken in any particular order.
Infection Control In The Human Service Environment, Critical Incident Reporting and Corporate Compliancy should all be scheduled annually.

Tip: Scheduling trainings 30 to 60 days prior to the annual review date (the date trainings move into archive) will allow staff members to complete their trainings should they fall short of the due date.

Instruct Personnel to Take Trainings

Click on Administration and select Mass Email.
Select Series 1 Training from the Email Templates list.
If personnel have set up their user accounts, you can click on Import Users to populate the Email Address List.
Click SEND.

Tip: All of the prepared trainings should be taken by ALL personnel. In later steps, you will add custom trainings.

STEP 5

Manage Documents

Click on Documents and select Accreditation Now Template Policies and Procedures for Download. The Document section are set up in the same order as the CARF manual.
As you read the manual, reference the individual documents you need.
Documents may be opened in Word, RTF or PDF.
The templates should be customized to reflect your specific organization.
Save your documents to a folder on your computer.

Manage Policies

Click on Documents and select Manage Policies and/or Documents.
You may select a document from the list or Add New.
Choose the Review Frequency. Select Upload New Version, enter a description and upload the document from the file saved on your computer.
Select Access Control. Select individuals that should have permission to view, update, review and receive late notices for each document.
Refresh the page or close and re-open the modal box.
Click on I have reviewed document.

Tip: Documents which are prepopulated in the management system contain a Download Template button that can be used to download the template. Appendix A in the CARF manual provides a list of required written documentation.

STEP 6

Surveys

CARF standards requires a process of ongoing collection of information from persons served and other relevant stakeholders.
Relevant stakeholders could include family members, ancillary service providers, referral sources, community members and so forth.
Begin utilizing the survey features as soon as possible.

Company Number

Your company number is used as the User Login for all surveys.
Your company number is located in the Administration section under Manage Account.
Personnel and Stakeholder passwords are located on the same page under your company number.

Client Surveys

To generate client passwords place your cursor over Surveys and select Client Survey Passwords.
Select the HELP button at the top right of the screen for additional information about this page.
You can familiarize yourself with client surveys with documents located in Group One: Aspire to Excellence, D. Input From Persons Served.
Open the Client Survey Request Form for an instruction template you can provide to clients.

Personnel and Stakeholder Surveys

Community Stakeholder/ Personnel surveys can be accessed in several ways:

Send a link to the Stakeholder/Personnel.
You can access a link to your organizations Community Stakeholder or Personnel Surveys by holding your cursor over Account and then select Administration.
Under the Account Setup heading, select Manage Web Links. You can then offer the web link instead of a Login and Password.
Provide the Anonymous Login ID (your subscriber account number) and Community or Personnel Survey Password along with instructions on how to access the survey; (Go to www.accreditationnow.com and hold your cursor over Surveys and then select Community Stakeholder Survey or Personnel Survey and log in with information provided.)
To locate and/or modify the Community Stakeholder or Personnel password for your organization, hold your cursor over Account and select Administration.
In the center of the page at the top, select Manage Account. The Anonymous Login is on the right side of the page, with the Community Survey Password located two lines below.
You may embed the link from Option 1 into your organizatin's website and direct them to your website.

STEP 7

Critical Incidents

The critical incidents list is pre-populated with a list of incident types, to meet national standards. You may remove or add incident types to bring the list into compliance with State or local reporting requirements.

Select Administration
Click on Incidents list, under the Account Setup heading.
Uncheck any boxes you do not want to appear on the Critical Incident Report page.
Add any custom incident types you want to appear on the Critical Incident Report page.
Select SAVE.

Tip: If your local regulatory organization specifies levels of incidents, these can be included in the titles. i.e. Level 1 – Fire Alarm, Level 1 – Physician’s Order Errors, Level 2 – Staff Fall, Level 3 – Death of Consumer, etc.

STEP 8

Grievance Reporting

Set up client and personnel grievance types and resolutions list.

Select Administration
Click on Client Grievance Types, under the Account Setup heading.
Uncheck any grievance types you do not want to appear on the Client Grievance Report.
Add any grievance types you want to appear on the Client Grievance Report.
Select SAVE.
Click on Personnel Grievance Types, under the Account Setup heading.
Uncheck any grievance types you do not want to appear on the Personnel Grievance Report.
Add any grievance types you want to appear on the Personnel Grievance Report.
Select SAVE.
Click on Grievance Resolution List, under the Account Setup heading.
Uncheck any resolution types you do not want to appear on the Grievance Resolution Report.
Add any resolution types you want to appear on the Grievance Resolution Report.
Select SAVE.

STEP 9

Custom Trainings

Appendix C, in the CARF Standards Manual, lists the trainings required to meet CARF Standards. You should add custom trainings to assist in meeting these requirements. It is highly recommended training material, along with questions and answers, be prepared in advance, for copy and paste. Note: Once a participant has taken a training, it cannot be altered.

Select Administration
Select Custom Trainings, under the Training Setup heading.
Select ADD
Enter the Test Name.
Enter the number of questions.
Enter the number of questions required to pass.
Copy and paste the training material into the body.
You can edit or alter formatting, using the toolbar icons and functions.
Select Save.
Paste the first question into the Question box.
The Tutorial is the correct answer, should the participant indicate an incorrect answer.
Choose the number of answers that will be provided for the participant to choose from.
Provide the possible answers under Answer Details.
Indicate the correct answer.
Select Save.
Repeat the Question Details until all questions and answers have been provided.
At the top of the page, select Active, next to Status; the training will appear in the training list for personnel.

Tip: You can print a copy by selecting the Preview button. Policies and procedures, created for your organization, can be used as training material. Pictures can be added by using an online picture hosting company to provide a url.

Step 10

Custom Reviews

Personnel Acknowledgments of policies and procedures can be tracked through the Custom Review feature.
Select Administration
Select Custom Reviews, under the Training Setup heading.
Select ADD.
Enter the Review Title
Copy and paste the document into the body.
Select SAVE.
Change the Status to Active and the review will appear in the training list for personnel.