The Joint Commission is hosting the Fifth International High Reliability Organizing Conference, May 21-23, at The Joint Commission Conference Center located in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. Day one of the conference opened with a keynote address from Mark R. Chassin, M.D. FACP, M.P.P., M.P.H., president, The Joint Commission, on the topic of “High Reliability Healthcare: What’s Holding Us Back?” Chassin focused on the importance of achieving and maintaining consistently high levels of safety. . .
This year, The Joint Commission is celebrating the 10th anniversary of our Speak Up program. We would love to see how our accredited organizations are using the Speak Up materials. If you have brochures, posters or include the Speak Up messages in patient handbooks or other handouts, please share them with us.
The Joint Commission has developed community-based prevention and wellness promotion services standards that apply only to behavioral health care organizations that provide these services to their community. The standards were developed because the number of organizations providing these services is increasing.
Work is well underway on The Joint Commission’s “reinvention” of its Long Term Care Accreditation Program. “A project like this touches many areas of The Joint Commission Enterprise, from accreditation operations to information technology to surveyor staffing and training,” says Gina Zimmermann, M.S., executive director, Long Term Care Accreditation.
A new Standards BoosterPak™ for Sample Collection has been posted on The Joint Commission Connect extranet for all accreditation programs. The BoosterPak provides tips and advice for collecting samples and transporting them to the laboratory.
The Joint Commission is asking clinical engineers to participate in a seven question online survey about issues related to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) December 2011 directive on medical equipment maintenance. The Joint Commission is also conducting a concurrent survey for facilities managers with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE).
The Joint Commission will consider Traditional Equivalency requests from Joint Commission-accredited hospitals and long term care organizations for certain sections of the 2012 edition of the National Fire Protection Association’s Life Safety Code® (LSC) (NFPA 101-2012) that benefit patient care. A Traditional Equivalency request describes how a facility will offset LSC deficiencies without reducing the protection set by the LSC’s requirements.
Links to pertinent information recently posted to the website.
The Joint Commission was awarded the Publicity Club of Chicago (PCC) Silver Trumpet Award in the category of feature videotapes and films for its Speak Up patient safety animated videos. The Joint Commission’s award was among winners in 20 categories honored by the PCC at its 53rd Annual Golden Trumpet Awards.