Starting Jan. 1, 2023, The Joint Commission will resume intracycle calls for the Disease-Specific Care (DSC) and Health Care Staffing Services (HCSS) certification programs.
These calls were suspended in 2021 because of the backlog caused by the pandemic. The intracycle evaluation process requires programs to update their intracycle tabs in the Certification Measure Information Process (CMIP) tool and participate in an intracycle call with a Joint Commission reviewer.
DSC- and HCSS-certified programs that were reviewed after Jan. 1, 2022, should expect and are required to participate in an intracycle call in 2023 as part of their intracycle evaluation process:
- When: An intracycle call is conducted in the 12th or 13th month of the two-year certification cycle as a midpoint check-in with a Joint Commission reviewer.
- What: Its purpose is to discuss any changes in the program, performance improvement initiatives and performance measurement data.
- Who: In the 12th or 13th month of the program’s certification cycle, a Joint Commission reviewer will contact the individual listed in Tab 8 (Intracycle Conference Call) of CMIP by email or phone to set up a date and time for the intracycle call; a meeting invitation will then be sent for the actual call.
- How: The program contact may then forward the meeting invitation to identified staff who should participate in the intracycle call. Please note that cameras are expected to be on during the call, and the date and time for the intracycle call are not posted on the organization’s Joint Commission Connect® extranet site.
Questions may be directed to your account executive.
The Joint Commission and the American Heart Association (AHA) have finalized the process for an automatic data transfer from the AHA’s Get with the Guidelines® - Coronary Artery Disease (GWTG-CAD) registry directly into the Certification Measure Information Process (CMIP) tool for Acute Heart Attack Ready (AHAR) and Primary Heart Attack Center (PHAC) programs. This process is available for all AHAR and PHAC programs to utilize.
For the data transfer to take place with The Joint Commission, an organization needs to ensure its contract with AHA permits the sharing of data by contacting certification@heart.org. Manual data entry should continue until confirmation of when the automatic data transfer will begin. As a reminder, organizations that allow the automatic data transfer from the registry into CMIP should check their data quarterly to ensure data accuracy.
Additionally, with the launch of Comprehensive Heart Attack Center (CHAC) program in 2022, there is a plan to expand this automatic data transfer to the CHAC program in 2023. More details to come on when this will be available for the CHAC program.
The data transfer schedule is as follows:
- Quarter 1 — June 15
- Quarter 2 — Sept. 15
- Quarter 3 — Dec. 15
- Quarter 4 — March 15
Please finalize data by 11:59 p.m. ET the night before each data transfer date.
Refreshed Accelerate PI™ Dashboard Reports are available for primary (PSC) and comprehensive stroke (CSC) centers to provide updated performance measurement data on the quality measures selected for advanced PSC and CSC certification programs. The refreshed reports contain data through the first quarter of 2022.
The dashboards provide performance measurement data on all the measures that PSCs and CSCs report using the Certification Measure Information Process (CMIP). The reports are intended to be a springboard for conversations on performance measures and quality improvement during the certification process, as well as a guide to support an organization’s quality journey.
Reports are located under the “Resources and Tools” menu below the DASH heading in Joint Commission Connect®. Users must select “Certification” on the home screen prior to accessing the menu.
The Joint Commission has created a Health Care Equity Resource Center that will help organizations monitor their progress toward health care equity.
In January 2023, our new Health Care Equity accreditation requirements will go into effect for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and some segments of ambulatory care and behavioral health care and human services organizations. These new requirements recognize that health care organizations need established leaders and standardized structures and processes to detect and address health care disparities.
The resources include:
- Strategies: Links to resources such as toolkits, templates, and guides
- Soundbites: Brief videos or organizations’ lessons learned
- Snapshots: Brief synopses of approaches used by organizations
- Evidence-based interventions
This is just the beginning, and more resources will be added in the coming months. The Joint Commission looks forward to learning from organizations that are making advances, sharing their stories, and being partners with them on this journey to create a more equitable health care system.
Visit the Health Care Equity Resource Center.
The Joint Commission has joined the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health’s Sync for Social Needs coalition, committing to a role in ending hunger and reducing diet-related disease in the United States by 2030.
The Sync for Social Needs coalition brings together leading healthcare organizations and healthcare technology companies that aim to integrate nutrition information within a patient’s electronic health record via a standardized, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-based approach.
As the standards-setting organization for more than 22,000 U.S. healthcare organizations, The Joint Commission is committed to working with participants to scale implementation to lower clinician burden to screen for social needs.
The Joint Commission recognizes that the social determinants of health (SDOH) – the conditions in the environments where people live, learn, work, and play – can limit an individual’s access to nutritious foods. Americans who lack access to nutritious food are disproportionately low-income, Black or Hispanic, or live in rural areas. Standardizing SDOH data collection and sharing is a crucial step in understanding and addressing the nature and extent of the problem at hand.
“Health equity is among The Joint Commission’s highest priorities,” said Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, MACP, FACMI, president and chief executive officer, The Joint Commission. “By standardizing the collection and sharing of social determinants of health data, clinicians can be better prepared to tailor a patient’s care to their environment, access, and abilities. The Joint Commission looks forward to collaborating with some of the United States’ leading healthcare organizations to address the social determinants of health that contribute to food insecurity.”
Other member organizations of the Sync for Social Needs coalition include the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Quality Forum, National Committee for Quality Assurance, HL7 International, Epic, Oracle-Cerner, Rush University System for Health, Tufts Medicine, Riverside Health System, SCAN Health Plan, Sanford Health, SSM Health, Higi, BayCare, Geisinger, Meditech, FindHelp, Wellsky, UniteUs, Graphite Health, Saffron Labs, and XanthosHealth.
Learn more about the Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and the Sync for Social Needs coalition. Also, furthering its commitment to health equity, The Joint Commission recently released new and revised requirements to reduce healthcare disparities that will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023.