The Joint Commission and National Quality Forum (NQF) honored individual, local, and national efforts to improve patient safety and healthcare quality through the prestigious John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards, presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., last week. The awards are named for the late Dr. Eisenberg, an impassioned advocate for healthcare quality improvement.
The Veterans Health Administration was honored for National Level Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality for its Surgical Pause initiative. The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium (BMC2) received the Local Level Innovation award for improving the quality of care and outcomes for cardiovascular patients in Michigan. Dr. Eduardo Salas received the Individual Achievement award for his remarkable contributions to healthcare quality over his 40-year career.
The Joint Commission and the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) are now accepting applications for its fellowship award for advancing sustainable healthcare. This one-year, full time paid fellowship begins July 1, 2025, and will be awarded to a student who will graduate from a CAHME-accredited or -certified program, and who demonstrates commitment to sustainability, quality and safety, and process improvement.
The fellowship was established in recognition that sustainability, a well-educated workforce, and healthcare quality and safety have a broad and all-encompassing impact on the health of the community.
Applications are due by Friday, Sept. 27, 2024.
Effective Jan. 1, 2025, disease-specific care (DSC) certified organizations using nonstandardized performance measures will be required to report measure data quarterly. Currently, these data are reported annually through the Certification Measure Information Process (CMIP).
The revised data submission schedule will align with advanced DSC certification programs collecting standardized measure data as well as ORYX® data for Joint Commission accredited assisted living communities, critical access hospitals, and hospitals. A consistent data submission schedule for all performance measure data simplifies reporting requirements, particularly for organizations accredited and/or certified for multiple Joint Commission programs.
DSC certification programs using nonstandardized performance measures must collect and analyze data on four self-selected measures. At a minimum, two of the four should be clinical measures related to or identified in clinical practice guidelines (see Table 2. “Approved Clinical Practice Guidelines,” in the CERT chapter of the DSC manual) for that program or service. The Joint Commission must receive performance measure data no later than 3 months following the end of the calendar quarter (see the following table for submission dates).
- Quarter 1: June 30
- Quarter 2: Sept. 30
- Quarter 3: Dec. 31
- Quarter 4: March 31
Organizations should contact their account executive for more information.