Featured Podcast
Title: Standards Improvement Initiative Update 1
Release Date: March 13, 2008 - Download Audio File
Click on the program links below to view Update 1.
Update 1 of the accreditation manuals provides an overview of the Standards Improvement Initiative (SII), which is working to make standards, rationales, and elements of performance (EPs) easier for health care organizations to use.
For the ambulatory care, critical access hospitals, home care, hospital, and office-based surgery accreditation programs, the update includes sample standards that illustrate the changes resulting from SII. Changes for these programs go into effect January 2009. Changes for the behavioral health care, laboratory services, and long term care accreditation programs will go into effect in January 2010.
In addition, the update includes changes being made to the scoring and accreditation decisions which will affect all programs beginning January 1, 2009. Please note that the proposed changes to the scoring and decision processes are still under review by The Joint Commission. Changes to the scoring and decision processes will be published by July 1, 2008 on The Joint Commission website.
As a result of the deletion of redundant and non-essential standards, as well as the reorganization of the standards and elements of performance within the manuals, the standards and EPs have been renumbered. Since all the standards will be renumbered, the standards will be posted on The Joint Commission website and your organization’s Joint Commission Connect extranet by July 1, 2008. These standards will be posted with a comparison table showing what happened to each standard, its new number and, if it changed, how it changed. The standards and the comparison table will remain online until the print versions of the manuals are available in September 2008.
Furthermore, a series of audio conferences will be scheduled later this summer to further discuss SII. In the meanwhile, if you have questions about SII, please send them to standardsimprovement@jointcommission.org, or contact your account representative. More information about SII is available at http://www.jointcommission.org/Standards/SII/.