Quality Check is a comprehensive consumer guide of more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs throughout the United States that are accredited by The Joint Commission. You can access Quality Check at www.qualitycheck.org or through the Joint Commission's website, www.jointcommission.org.
The following features are included in Quality Check:
- A search function displays the parent organization and the sites of care. Using either the consumer or advanced search options, individuals can search by organization name, distance (miles) from zip code, by state and compare up to six geographic locations at one time.
- The comparisons of Joint Commission accredited organizations show the applicable National Patient Safety Goals and National Quality Improvement Goals (hospitals only). Individuals can compare information between parent organizations only, not between sites of care. For example, if Hospital X and Surgical Center Y are both sites accredited under XYZ Medical Center (the parent organization), comparison information will only be available for XYZ Medical Center.
Quality Reports
As part of the accreditation process, the Joint Commission provides the public and health care professionals with relevant and useful information about the quality and safety of Joint Commission-accredited organizations in Quality Reports, available via Quality Check. Quality Reports feature a user-friendly format with checks, pluses and minuses to help individuals compare health care organization performance in a number of key areas. Historical Performance Reports are also available on Quality Check.
The reports provide information on a health care organization’s:
- Joint Commission accreditation decision and the effective dates of the accreditation award.
- For Provisional, Conditional and Preliminary Denial of Accreditation decisions, the reports will list the standards cited for requirements for improvement.
- Compliance with the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals, as applicable to the organization, and performance on National Quality Improvement Goals (hospitals only). National Quality Improvement Goals reflect hospital reporting on the key indicators of quality of care in up to five treatment areas: heart attack, heart failure, community acquired pneumonia, pregnancy and related conditions, and surgical infection prevention. As more measures are approved and endorsed by the National Quality Forum, the Joint Commission will explore ways to incorporate that data into Quality Reports.
- Special quality awards, such as Disease-Specific Care Certification, Ernest A. Codman Award, Eisenberg Patient Safety Award, Franklin Award, Hospital Quality Alliance Participant, The Magnet Award, and others approved by the Joint Commission Board of Commissioners.
- Each health care organization is invited to submit a brief public commentary for inclusion in its Quality Report. This commentary may be submitted or updated at any time via the Joint Commission’s secure Extranet site, Joint Commission Connect. For more information on submitting a commentary, contact your Joint Commission account representative. If you do not know who your representative is, please call (630) 792-3007.