The Joint Commission and partners adjust volume requirements for cardiac and stroke certifications

For nearly 20 years, The Joint Commission has collaborated with the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Stroke Association (ASA) to help improve cardiovascular and stroke care. Recently, we updated the eligibility requirements for our codeveloped cardiac and stroke certifications. 

Effective immediately, and in consultation with our partners, we have removed the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) volume criteria from the Primary Heart Attack Center (PHAC), Comprehensive Heart Attack Center (CHAC) and Comprehensive Cardiac Center (CCC) Certifications. Additionally, we have reduced the aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) volume criteria for Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) Certification.

Carefully following the best available evidence, these changes will allow more cardiac and stroke centers to provide safe, high-quality patient care through the framework certification provides – serving more patients and further reducing the burden of certification while still accessing its benefits.
 
To guide this decision, The Joint Commission and the AHA/ASA conducted an extensive literature review about the relationship between patient volume and the quality and safety of care delivered, as well as discussions with stakeholders and healthcare organizations The Joint Commission serves.

The changes by certification type include:

• For PHAC certified organizations: Program eligibility no longer requires organizations to achieve 200 percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) per year, nor requires the achievement of 36 primary PCI procedural volumes per year for STEMI and STEMI equivalent patients. 
• For CHAC and CCC certified organizations: Program eligibility no longer requires organizations to achieve 400 percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) per year, nor requires the achievement of 36 primary PCI procedural volumes per year for STEMI and STEMI equivalent patients.
• For CSC certified organizations: Program eligibility no longer requires provision of care to 20 or more patients per year with a diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm. The new requirement is provision of care to 10 or more patients per year with a diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm.

The Comprehensive Certification Manual for Disease-Specific Care will include the new volume criteria eligibility requirements starting in January 2026, and the E-Application will update soon to reflect these changes. While we are removing or updating the eligibility requirements based on the specific certification program, we will still collect volume data in the application to understand each program’s volume.

For questions, please contact certification@jointcommission.org.