The Joint Commission has developed new and revised pain assessment and management standards for the Hospital accreditation program. In early 2016, The Joint Commission began conducting an extensive literature review on contemporary guidelines and best practices for pain assessment and management in order to identify disparities between current accreditation requirements and contemporary guidance. The Joint Commission then performed a review of current pain assessment and management standards, and developed revised standards that could adequately address the identified disparities.
The new and revised standards include the following requirements:
- Identifying a leader or leadership team that is responsible for pain management and safe opioid prescribing
- Involving patients in developing their treatment plans and setting realistic expectations and measurable goals
- Promoting safe opioid use by identifying high-risk patients
- Monitoring high-risk patients
- Facilitating clinician access to prescription drug monitoring program databases
- Performance improvement activities focusing on pain assessment and management to increase the safety and quality for patients
Prepublication Standards - Effective January 1, 2018