Eligibility for Certification for Palliative Care | Joint Commission

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Saturday 2:41 CST, July 15, 2017

Eligibility for Certification for Palliative Care

Advanced Certification for Palliative Care


To be eligible for Advanced Certification for Palliative Care, a palliative care program must:

  • Be provided within a Joint Commission--accredited hospital. All types of hospitals are eligible, including children’s hospitals and long term acute care hospitals. A dedicated unit or dedicated beds are not required.
  • Provide the full range of palliative care services to hospitalized patients 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
    • Programs must have team members available to answer phone calls nights/weekend and the ability to come to the hospital to see patients 24/7 when necessary to meet patient/family needs.
    • Programs must be able to provide the same level of palliative care services during nights/weekends as during normal weekday hours.
    • Programs are not required to have palliative care team members physically present in the hospital 24/7.
  • Have served a minimum of 10 patients and have at least one active patient at the time of the initial Joint Commission on-site review. Hospice patients are eligible for inclusion in the minimum patient count only if they were receiving inpatient palliative care from the program prior to transitioning to hospice care. These patients may be selected for tracer activity during the on-site review with the reviewer focusing on the episode of inpatient palliative care closest to the hospice transition.
  • Use a standardized method of delivering clinical care based on clinical practice guidelines and/or evidence-based practice.
  • Direct and coordinate the provision of palliative care, treatment and services for the program patients (that is, write orders, direct or coordinate activities of the patient care team, and influence composition of the patient care team).
  • Follow an organized approach supported by an interdisciplinary team of health professionals.
  • Use performance measurement to improve its performance over time. Four months of performance measure data must be available at the time of the initial on-site certification review. At least two of the four measures must be clinical measures related to or identified in practice guidelines for the program. Measures selected by the program or service should be evidence-based, relevant, valid, and reliable. At this time, The Joint Commission is not defining the specific measures that are implemented; the emphasis is on the use of performance measures for improving palliative care services.
Advanced Certification in Palliative Care
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