March 13, 2007

Dear Colleagues:

The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and the Amputee Coalition of America (ACA) have been working on developing new Amputation Specialty Program Standards for use in accrediting facilities that serve persons with limb loss. As a final step in the standards development process, they are now being presented to you for review. Your input ensures that the services you receive meet your needs for quality and the best possible outcomes. We value your opinions, comments and suggestions. Your input to the field review is critical to us in maintaining the relevancy and currency of CARF standards.

Deadline for Submission

Please complete the field review and submit it by Monday, April 2, 2007. Unfortunately, responses submitted after this date cannot be considered.

About the Standards

These standards were developed by an International Standards Review Committee (ISRC) of experts in the field of limb loss. They were then reviewed by CARF’s International Advisory Committee and revised based on its input. As our final step in the standards development process, they are now being presented to you for input. Once finalized, based on the collective input we receive from you, these will be published and available for use in organizations. Please be aware that these standards are not stand-alone program standards. The Amputation Specialty Program Standards are similar to the Stroke Specialty Standards in that they will be attached to an existing program such as Comprehensive Integrated Inpatient Rehabilitation or Outpatient Medical Rehabilitation. Please note that at the beginning of the review we have developed a few standards that will be applied to any program seeking accreditation that serves people with limb loss. These programs choose not to seek the specialty program accreditation, but do serve the population. The ISRC felt it was imperative that anyone who serves this population should have certain competencies, services and assistance available. This same model is already used with programs that serve a population who have spinal cord dysfunction but are not seeking accreditation as a Spinal Cord System of Care.

About This Field Review

As part of CARF's ongoing efforts to improve survey processes, this review is being presented to the field as an online survey. Please click this link to enter the survey: fs19.formsite.com/CARF_FR/amputation/form_login.html  

(If the link does not work, copy and paste the link text into your browser's address field.) This will take you to the log-in screen. Once you have logged in, you can immediately begin reviewing the standards.