The Joint Commission's Disease-Specific Care (DSC) Certification program was launched in February 2002. Since then, the Joint Commission's Disease-Specific Care Certification program has collaborated with the American Stroke Association to develop Primary Stroke Center Certification. The Joint Commission launched the nation's first certification program for chronic kidney disease management. The program uses the National Kidney Foundation's clinical practice guidelines.
In 2006, the Joint Commission launches certification programs for Lung Volume Reduction Surgery, implantation of Left Ventricular Assist Devices, and Organ Transplant Centers. The Joint Commission is collaborating with the American Diabetes Association to develop an advanced Disease-Specific Care certification program for inpatient diabetes care.
The Joint Commission lists certified programs online.
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The Joint Commission introduced a standard on managing patient flow in 2005. The standard helps hospitals address emergency department overcrowding. The Joint Commission selected emergency department overcrowding as the third topic for its public policy initiative.
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The Joint Commission has required disaster planning for more than 30 years. Its standards provide a framework for comprehensive emergency management. The standards require organizations to identify the potential emergencies that could affect them, and develop a plan that addresses the four phases of emergency management activities: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Emergency management plans must also address command structures, backup communications systems, building evacuations, and coordination with other community health care organizations and emergency responders.
Beyond its accreditation standards, the Joint Commission has addressed emergency management issues in testimony before Congress, in a 2003 white paper, and by convening a series of roundtables and symposia.
In December 2005, the Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources published Surge Hospitals: Providing Safe Care in Emergencies. This free, web-based guide shares lessons learned from hospitals affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
In September 2005, the Joint Commission published Standing Together: An Emergency Management Planning Guide for America's Communities. The free, web-based guide was downloaded more than 400,000 times in the six weeks after its release.
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The Joint Commission selected health care professional education as its sixth public policy initiative, and hosted roundtables in 2003 and 2004, and a national conference in September 2005. It anticipates releasing a white paper on health care professional education in 2006.
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Joint Commission standards require organizations to respect and address the cultural and linguistic diversity of their patients, residents, and individuals served. These factors are an important issue in providing safe, high quality care. To support this, the Joint Commission is conducting 30-month study, Hospitals, Language, and Culture: A Snapshot of the Nation, funded by the California Endowment. The study will gather data on a sample of hospitals to assess their capacity to address the issues of language and culture that impact the quality and safety of patient care.
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The Joint Commission's Speak Up™ safety awareness campaign publishes a free brochure for individuals who are considering participation in a human research study. What you should know about research studies provides guidance and a list of questions to encourage individuals to become active, involved, and informed.
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Health care-associated infections pose a risk to individuals in a variety of care settings. The Joint Commission strengthened and updated its infection control standards for 2005 to reflect state-of-the-art expectations. In addition, the Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals focus organizations on improving staff hand hygiene and reviewing deaths and injuries caused by infections.
Patients and the public play a role in infection control as well. The Joint Commission's Speak Up™ safety awareness campaign publishes a free brochure and poster on Three Things You Can Do To Prevent Infection.
As the world prepares for a possible influenza pandemic, Joint Commission Resources and Joint Commission International co-hosted Think Globally, Act Locally: An International Conference on Infections that Have No Boundaries in September 2005 with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. The conference brought together international experts from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among others to take a global look at the origins of deadly pathogens and how to stop them from spreading.
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Tens of thousands of people are currently waiting for a life-saving organ transplant; thousands die while waiting. The Joint Commission selected organ donation as the fourth topic for its public policy initiative, releasing a Speak Up™ brochure for living organ donors and a white paper in 2004. In 2006, the Joint Commission launches an Organ Transplant Center Certification program.
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The Joint Commission's 2001 pain management standards state that every patient has a right to have his or her pain assessed and treated. These standards were the product of a two-year collaboration between the Joint Commission and the University of Wisconsin – Madison Medical School.
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The mission of the Joint Commission is to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation, certification, and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations. A study published in Health Affairs concluded that the Joint Commission is the primary driver of hospitals' patient safety initiatives.
The Joint Commission is internationally recognized as a leader in patient safety. It provides accreditation and consultative services in more than 80 countries. In 2005, the World Health Organization selected the Joint Commission as its sole Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions. The Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety, established in early 2005, works to coordinate and disseminate patient safety solutions developed by the Joint Commission and its affiliate Joint Commission Resources.
Almost 50 percent of Joint Commission standards are directly related to safety, addressing such issues as medication use, infection control, surgery and anesthesia, transfusions, restraint and seclusion, staffing and staff competence, fire safety, medical equipment, emergency management, and security. For more than a decade, the Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Policy has provided health care organizations a framework for reviewing adverse events and preventing them from harming future patients. In 2001, the Joint Commission began requiring health care organizations to tell patients when they've been harmed by a medical error. The Speak Up™ patient safety awareness campaign, launched in collaboration with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, urges patients to play a more active role in their care. The National Patient Safety Goals focus health care organizations on preventing specific medical errors. The Universal Protocol to Prevent Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure and Wrong Person Surgery™ standardizes operating room procedures at hospitals and surgery centers across the nation.
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The Joint Commission recognizes the potential of pay-for-performance programs to improve health care quality and safety. In 2004, the Joint Commission established national principles to guide pay-for-performance programs.
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Since 1992, Joint Commission standards have required accredited hospitals to prohibit smoking in the hospital.
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The health care industry faces staffing shortages in a number of areas. The Joint Commission selected the nursing shortage as the first topic for its public policy initiative, and released a white paper in 2002. The Joint Commission's Nursing Advisory Council continues to advance implementation of the white paper's recommendations.
Joint Commission standards provide a framework for health care organizations to determine the number, competency and skill mix of their staff by linking staffing effectiveness to clinical outcomes. Joint Commission President Dennis S. O'Leary, M.D., described the standards during testimony before the Institute of Medicine.
Some health care organizations rely on outside staffing firms to meet staffing needs. In 2004, the Joint Commission launched a Health Care Staffing Services Certification program to evaluate and certify staffing firms that meet national standards. The standards address how staffing firms determine the qualifications and competency of their staff, how they place their staff, and then monitor staff's performance.
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The Joint Commission selected tort resolution and injury prevention as the fifth topic for its public policy initiative. Following a series of roundtables and a national conference in 2004, the Joint Commission released a white paper on the liability insurance crisis and its impact on patient care.
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