Link: 2010 Accreditation Requirements Chapters: Pre-Publication Preview
Requirements for accreditation from the Joint Commission have been published on their site for review in the following areas:
Might be an interesting read with opportunities to comment.
Link: Joint Commission provides opportunity to comment on Proposed Requirements to Advance Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient-Centered Care
The Joint Commission is proposing accreditation requirements for hospitals to improve communication, cultural competence and patient-centered care. A questionnaire to obtain feedback is accessible from the above link.
The proposed requirements include:
I think it would be interesting to map these requirements to recently published criteria/care goals/objectives for "meaningful use." Some of the items listed above are, in fact, included in the recently published "meaningful use" objectives.
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Link: Joint Commission Invitation to comment on 2009 NPSGs
The Door is open...
The Jt. Commission published an invitation to comment on the proposed 2009 National Patient Safety Goals located at the link above. Goals involve areas such as:
- Ambulatory Care
- Behavioral Health Care
- Critical Access Hospital
- Disease-Specific Care
- Home Care
- Hospital
- Laboratory
- Long Term Care & Medicare/Medicaid Certification-Based Long Term Care
- Office-Based Surgery
Although no new NPSGs are expected, the revisions (as mentioned in the links above) are scheduled to go into effect in January 2010.
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Link: ‘Hospital of the Future’ Report Urges Major Changes | Joint Commission.
A recent white paper publication of the Joint Commission, "Healthcare at the Crossroads: Guiding Principles for the Development of the Hospital of the Future" suggests that hospitals must respond in new ways to meet increasing complexity of patient care and to address rising health care costs.
The report recommends action in five areas:
It is no surprise that Patient-Centered care is at the core as "a partnership" between a patient and his/her providers.
The Joint Commission suggests that technology adoption can play a major role in improving patient care, safety and quality. The transformation from paper to electronic records, according to the report, will involve:
It is refreshing to see an approach to healthcare technology implementation that seems to leverage the experience and knowledge of other industries. The road to the Hospital of the Future will be bumpy, but the benefits will be great once we arrive!
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with your compliance initiatives? If so then check out the HSG Store.
The Joint Commission established WikiHealthCare to solicit input from the thousands of healthcare providers on topics related to Standards Development & Research. I came across a section that discussed the need for standardized data definitions across facilities, providers, and computer systems that could promote continuity of patient care. After working in other industries that standardized catalog entries across the globe, I had a couple of things to say.
A taxonomy consensus is certainly required for healthcare to improve patient care. There is, in fact, a gap in continuity of care across providers and facilities.
The potential roadblock to adoption of standards is lack of preagreement on these standards. In other industries, the road to consensus was a long drawn-out process, often due to the exponential cost of converting to the standard but not insurmountable (e.g. UN/EDIFACT - United Nations Directories for Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport). Software tools are available in the marketplace that can facilitate conversion to a standard taxonomy/data dictionary.
Given the spectrum and magnitude of the various types of healthcare facilities, providers and interested parties, an appointed multi-disiplinary task force is recommended to establish the standards and facilitate adoption. Expect an outcry from the general industry (e.g. HIPPA standards), but the outcomes for patients and care providers outweigh the negatives.
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