Operation Support Research Group

The Joint Commission's Operation Support Research Group uses quantitative and qualitative research methods to ensure that decision making across the organization is informed by reliable information. The research team designs and implements research protocols, analyzes data, explores patterns and themes, and develops data visualization tools to help interpret and communicate study results. The team regularly works with accreditation and certification survey data, as well as external sources of quality and safety information, to inform internal decision making and identify opportunities for improvement across the Joint Commission Enterprise.

Improving the Consistency of Accreditation and Certification Scoring

Consistency is the cornerstone of a highly reliable organization. After The Joint Commission developed the Survey Analysis for Evaluating Risk® (SAFER™) matrix in 2017, the need to develop ways to ensure consistency became even more important. Please read our white paper to learn about the multiple strategies implemented over the last three years to improve scoring consistency and validity and the major improvements resulting from these efforts.

Download our white paper

COVID Community Prevalence Dashboard

This interactive dashboard is intended to provide some insight into the factors that The Joint Commission considers when evaluating community COVID prevalence. Users can select a specific state and county to assess current COVID incident rates and trends.

View community COVID rates

COVID Exposure and Transmission Risk Calculator

The risk of using medical masks instead of N95 masks (or other respirators) for aerosol-generating procedures (APGs) can be significant even when all patients have a negative COVID-19 PCR test prior to the procedure. While a great many factors will go into this determination, risk can be broken down into two key elements: risk of exposure and risk of transmission. This risk calculator was developed with the hope that organizations will generate their own estimates of exposure and transmission, and share the results openly with stakeholders, including clinicians, so the group can come to a shared decision on whether the risk is acceptably low for clinicians to wear medical masks instead of N95s when conducting AGPs in asymptomatic patients with a recent negative COVID-19 test.”

Download our calculator