While the standard will remain present in the current manual, surveyors have been advised not to evaluate for compliance. The database will be updated and be reflected in the next standards release later this year.
Further questions on how to address evidence of standards compliance may be directed to the organization’s designated account executive.
The Joint Commission regularly updates its Health Care Equity (HCE) Accreditation Standards & Resource Center and its HCE Certification Resource Center to help organizations meet healthcare equity requirements. The resource centers include:
- Snapshots: Brief synopses of approaches used by other organizations.
- Soundbites: Brief videos of organizations’ lessons learned.
- Strategies: Links to resources such as toolkits, templates and guides.
New resources now available from the HCE Accreditation Standards & Resource Center include:
- The Feasibility of Screening for Social Determinants of Health: Seven Lessons Learned
- Learn about the outcomes and lessons learned from a nine-month Social Determinant of Health pilot project. (Source: AAFP)
- Identifying and Addressing Social Needs in Primary Care Setting
- This tool is designed for practices that are considering screening patients for social needs. (Source: AHRQ)
- Achieving Health Equity: Equity Charter Guidance
- This tool was designed to help organizations develop an Equity Charter guided by the four pillars of racial equity in healthcare: Our People, Our Organization, Our Patients and Our Community. (Source: Illinois Health and Hospital Association)
- This tool was designed to help organizations develop an Equity Charter guided by the four pillars of racial equity in healthcare: Our People, Our Organization, Our Patients and Our Community. (Source: Illinois Health and Hospital Association)
The following resources are new in the HCE Certification Resource Center:
- Systematic Review of Social Risk Screening Tool
- This resource provides an overview of social risk screening tools. Use the filters to select domains and constructs to find screening tools that meet any of the selected criteria. (Source: Kaiser Permanente)
- Racial Equity in Healthcare Progress Report Playbook: From Data to Action
- This playbook outlines a 7-step process which will enable organizations to reflect upon your data, focus on tangible best practices, outline a plan to execute those best practices, and commit to action through an equity charter. (Source: (Source: Illinois Health and Hospital Association)
- A spotlight on the Racial Equity in Healthcare Progress Report – A collaborative effort between RUSH University Medical Center, University of Chicago Medicine, the Civic Consulting Alliance of Chicago and the Illinois Health and Hospital Association.
- Learn about the Racial Equity in Healthcare Progress Report that serves as a tool for tracking the advancements made by health care organizations in achieving racial health equity.
To continue to learn from other organizations engaged in health care equity work, sign up for E-Alerts to be notified when new resources are added to both resource centers.
Effective Jan. 1, 2024, The Joint Commission has approved new and revised requirements for the Advanced Disease-Specific Care Acute Stroke Ready Hospital (ASRH), Primary Stroke Center (PSC), Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Center (TSC), and Comprehensive Stroke Center (CSC) certification programs. These changes will apply to hospitals that are seeking initial certification or recertification in the stroke programs.
The new and revised requirements are designed to help certified hospitals improve safety and the quality of care for individuals diagnosed with stroke. The Joint Commission reviewed its existing stroke programs and updated the requirements to:
- Include current guidelines.
- Clarify the intent of the requirements.
- Align requirements across programs.
The requirements reflect the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association national guidelines for stroke care and program implementation, as well as current evidence-based practices, research, and scientific statements. The Joint Commission also obtained feedback from subject matter experts and customers that have a stroke program certification.
View the prepublication standards.
To support this goal, The Joint Commission will maintain both the PC-05 chart-abstracted measure and ePC-05 for optional use in ORYX® reporting. Keeping the measure as an optional measure will allow Joint Commission-accredited critical access hospitals and hospitals to use the measure for data collection, monitoring, and quality improvement efforts. This change will be effective Jan. 1, 2024. The PC-05 chart-abstracted measure will continue to be required for Advanced Certification in Perinatal Care (ACPC).
Additionally, The Joint Commission will update the verbiage in performance measure PC-05 to reflect more inclusive language. The measure name and references to breastfeeding will be updated to Human Milk Feeding to be inclusive of donor milk and chest feeding.
This change relates to user feedback and distinguishes ischemic stroke patients who receive mechanical endovascular reperfusion therapy at a primary stroke center (that is, STK-VOL-1) from therapy-eligible ischemic stroke patients who are transferred to a higher-level stroke center for possible neuro-intervention and reported in stroke outpatient (STK-OP) performance measure STK-OP-1: Door to Transfer to Another Hospital.
These changes will be effective for discharges on and after Jan. 1, 2024.
Registration is open for an upcoming free Accelerate PI™ webinar on how hospitals and post-acute settings can learn to identify and engage physician leaders in quality improvement efforts. The webinar is scheduled for July 26, from 9-10 a.m. PT / 10-11 a.m. MT / 11 a.m.-noon p.m. CT / noon-1 p.m. ET.
During the webinar, Dr. Bobby Redwood, a physician improvement advisor with the Wisconsin Hospital Association, will present strategies for engaging physician champions and answer questions during a live Q&A segment. At the end of the session, participants should be able to:
- Describe the role of physician quality leaders in quality improvement initiatives.
- Recognize approaches that promote engagement vs. approaches that may cause physician leaders to withdraw and
- Identify strategies to counter resistance.
This webinar is approved for 1.0 Continuing Education Credit. To claim credit, you must:
- Individually register for the webinar.
- Listen to the live webinar in its entirety. Only those listening live during the session will be eligible to receive credit.
- Complete a post-program evaluation/attestation. The program evaluation/attestation link will be sent to your registered email after the webinar.
The webinar recording and slides will be available at the registration link approximately two hours after the session concludes.
Register.