A Brief Note On The Joint Commission Accreditation On Healthcare Organizations

In accordance with the World Health Organisation (WHO 2008) checklist and Local trust policies, a team briefing was held before the day’s list started. The checklist is part of a second Global Patient Safety Challenge initiative entitled ‘Safe Surgery Saves Lives’, aimed at reducing the number of surgical deaths worldwide and was launched in June 2008. This not

One of the recommendations for healthcare organizations to employ in an effort to reduce the number of errors is to advocate for voluntary error reporting nationally while conducting research and developing tools for patient safety. This way, information about errors can be gathered and prevented from reoccurring at health care sites and by health care providers. Voluntary error reporting will act as a warning of potential or actual errors and suggest ways to avoid them in the future.

The Joint Commission focuses on certain goals each year. For patient safety and positive outcomes, hospitals are required to follow certain standards. National Patient Safety Goals were established in 2002 to help identify areas of concern with patient safety. This group is made up by a panel of experts including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and many other healthcare professionals. They advise the Joint Commission on how to address these different patient safety issues. Two goals to be discussed are improving the accuracy of patient identification and medication safety. To improve patient

The Healthcare field is becoming more aware of how important it is to change the way that organizational culture is becoming in order to help improve patient safety. Even though patient safety plays a very important part of our health care system which helps explain the importance quality of health care. However, when trying to keep patients safe, it can be a demanding challenge because of human errors and mistakes that are made. According to World Health Organization, patient safety is the absence of preventable harm to a patient while in the process of health care (who.int/patientsafety). Being in the position of a clinical content manager, the first step in reporting problems is to make sure that when reporting a problem, it need to be done at the earliest stage to show the importance to the company. The approach that I would take as a Clinical content manager is to identify the problem, have regular shift meetings to address any issues, flag any errors that occurred, have regular safety meeting, give feedback to staff on any errors that were found, try to figure out the best solution not only for the patients, but staff also, and although being a team leader, I would give the staff the opportunity to address any concerns that they may have.

"To continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value” (Jointcommission.org, 2015). These requirements are regimented in the National Patient Safety Goals and are enforced via surveys and internal inspections to ensure that healthcare institutions abide by the safety mechanisms put in place to facilitate the optimal patient outcomes and environments.

I chose the monopolistically structured JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations). They are the only organization that determines whether hospitals or medical facilities are up to their standards enough to receive reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. “The Joint Commission is a monopoly because it has unique statutory protection in the USA and collects $113 million in annual revenue; it is the only organization in the USA of this nature” (Joint Commission Requirements, 2009). This revenue is mainly from the fees it charges US hospitals for evaluating their compliance with federal regulations.

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

5. The Patient Safety Officer will train the risk assessment team members on the proactive risk assessment process and how to conduct a proactive risk assessment, including the assessment of risk, itself.

The history of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals is a story of the health professions’ commitment to patient care of high quality in the 20th century. According to Dr. Ernest Codman, founder of the accreditation system, which would enable hospitals to track every patient it treat long enough to determine whether or not the treatment was effective. If not, the hospital would figure out how to prevent similar failures in the future (Roberts, Coale & Redman, 1987).

The Joint Commission is a not-for –profit organization. It’s a private nongovernmental program that is purposed for improving the quality of health care. The Joint Commission accredits more than 21,000 health care organizations in the United States. This document has created a standard and national patient safety goal in which health care providers must comply. A list was created do to the fact that many error has been made throughout the medical system. The Joint Commission brought forth, which is known as the do-not-use-list. This list contain many errors of words been misuse when it comes down to the medical field. When dealing with medication it’s very easy to make a mistake by a hand written prescription cause by rush handing writing

The Joint Commission is an accrediting agency that evaluates the services provided by health institutions and recognize that after their assessments meet all requirements. This visit is requested by the institution and after being accredited are visited every three years. “The Joint Commission is working to align and improve how accreditation and certification work together to enhance their value to organizations” (Horn, 2012, p.243). It is a prestige by being accredited by the Joint Commission. The hospital institution is evaluated in all aspects evaluated from the triage is performed in the ER, permits, documentation, security, administration of drugs, surgical procedures, to infection control and other aspects that are related to the safety

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) core measures in relation to Heart Failure (HF) was examined using empirical-based nursing research. Findings suggest that lack of understanding by nurses contributes significantly to the privation of core measure implementation. A significant number of Americans suffer from HF, so patient quality of care assessment was necessitated. Identifying factors were: nurse-patient education resulting in follow-up appointments, left ventricular performance or left ventricular systolic (LVS) function, treatment medications, and smoking cessation programs. Nurses provide an important role in the education of patients with HF. The Nurse is integral in providing documentation in relation to LVS. Nurses play an important role in the administration of HF medication. Smoking, a major cause of HF, requires special nursing intervention. Nursing results in improved quality of care if HF core measures are implemented properly. Additionally, Orem’s universal requisites are fundamental in the nursing process.

All these priorities focus on the national patients safety goal as the most important in patient management and treatment, and guide the hospitals toward appropriate policies and protocols to follow and to minimize any possible mistakes or patients harm. I choose the priority focus area of Communication to discuss the current compliance status of our organization concentrating on the standards, which did not meet the Joint

At least half a million deaths per year could be prevented with effective implementation of systemic improvements in operating rooms. Specifically, multiple studies have found implementing the use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist would significantly reduce surgical morbidity and mortality due to surgical errors.

2012 Joint Commission Patient Safety Goals. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2014, from Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center: www.lovell.fhcc.va.gov/about/2012PatientSafetyGoals.pdf