to main content Our Priorities | The Joint Commission
At The Joint Commission, we are committed to operating every part of our business in ways that are responsible and sustainable, while continuing to advance progress across the industry’s most pressing quality and safety challenges. Our guiding principle is to work with health care providers to translate intent into action, realizing a more promising tomorrow, together.

Ongoing Quality & Safety Priorities

The Joint Commission continues to support providers as they tackle some of the most challenging ongoing quality and safety issues, including:
Our vision is that all people always experience safe, high-quality healthcare. Today however, healthcare quality and health outcomes are often worse for racial/ethnic minorities, women, people living in rural communities, people with disabilities, those living in poverty, people with lower educational attainment, and other historically marginalized groups.
Learn more about healthcare equity

Environmental Sustainability

Extreme heat, poor water quality, flooding, wildfires, air pollution and other unexpected environmental events are making people sicker and escalating the cost of providing care. Events such as these exacerbate chronic cardiac, respiratory, and other conditions, and the increasing severity of climate-based events directly affects healthcare organizations’ operations as they react to these events and face disruptions in care, challenges in patient safety and managing unexpected costs.

If healthcare worldwide was its own country, it would be one of the top five largest carbon emitters on the planet.

To help healthcare organizations with sustainability, we have developed two resources specifically aimed at reducing emissions, the Sustainable Healthcare Certification Resource Center and the Sustainable Healthcare Certification program.
Learn more about sustainable healthcare

The COVID-19 pandemic compounded the global shortage of healthcare workers and the challenges they face — including accelerated rates of burnout, mental health crises, and violence in the workplace. As shortages of healthcare workers continue, putting strain on these professionals, quality and safety risks often rise, resulting in worse outcomes for patients.

To address the factors that contribute to burnout, The Joint Commission is reviewing our “above and beyond” standards that go beyond CMS’ Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and are not on crosswalks to the CoPs. The ultimate outcome is to eliminate standards and elements of performance that don't add commensurate value to care providers.

,,Patients deserve safe, high-quality care. Communities deserve access to a full range of health services. And health care workers deserve a healthy working environment.,,

Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, MACP, FACMI - President and CEO of The Joint Commission Enterprise

,,Ensuring the safety and resiliency of the organization and the workforce is a necessary precondition to advancing patient safety; we need to work toward a unified, total systems-based perspective and approach to eliminate harm to both patients and the workforce.,,

Institute for Healthcare Improvement

,,Just wanted to say 'thank you', from a person focusing upon both clinician wellbeing and patient safety, this is a big win. Thank you very much for the forward thinking of your CEO, from a Human Factors/Ergonomics point of view. In particular Macro (Organizational) Ergonomics, relief in the right direction. Distilling to what really matters as there is no extra time for anyone in healthcare, and every single person from administration to clinician and staff is overwhelmed with excessive expectations.,,

Michael R. Privitera, MD, MS - Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry - University of Rochester Medical Center

Additionally, we've curated a collection of resources on the topics of workplace violence prevention, worker well-being, and worker safety. Our ultimate goal is to equip healthcare leaders and staff with the tools, strategies, and best practices they need to safeguard the health and well-being of their teams, empowering them to deliver consistently excellent care.

Learn more about workforce safety & well-being