Facts About The Ernest Amory Codman Award®
The Joint Commission has been re-evaluating the Ernest Amory Codman Award® program in light of other Joint Commission initiatives and priorities. As part of this evaluation, a survey was conducted to determine demand and interest for a health care award program, including the Codman Award®, among accredited organizations. Based on initial feedback, The Joint Commission has decided to further evaluate the program. Therefore, there will not be a Codman Award program in 2012.
About the Award
The Ernest Amory Codman Award® was presented by The Joint Commission to health care organizations for achievement in the use of process and outcomes measures to improve organization performance and, ultimately, the quality and safety of care provided to the public. Named for the physician regarded in health care as the “father of outcomes measurement,” the Codman Award® was created in 1996 to showcase the effective use of performance measures, thereby enhancing knowledge and encouraging the use of performance measurement to improve the quality and safety of health care.
About Ernest Amory Codman, M.D.
A man of foresight and conviction, Ernest Amory Codman, M.D., was the acknowledged founder of what today is known as outcomes management. It was his lifelong pursuit to establish an “end results system” to track the outcomes of patient treatments as an opportunity to identify clinical misadventures that serve as the foundation for improving the care of future patients. He also believed that all of this information should be made public so that patients could be guided in their choices of physicians and hospitals.
Once a prominent surgeon on the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Codman eventually established his own hospital to pursue the performance measurement and improvement objectives he believed in so fervently. With an almost infinite interest in health care quality, Dr. Codman also helped lead the founding of the American College of Surgeons and its Hospital Standardization Program. That latter entity eventually became The Joint Commission.