USA - Joint Commission seeks input on potential national patient safety goals

Citation

(2007), "USA - Joint Commission seeks input on potential national patient safety goals", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2007.06220cab.009

USA - Joint Commission seeks input on potential national patient safety goals

Americas

USA - Joint Commission seeks input on potential national patient safety goals

Keywords: Healthcare standards, Healthcare improvement, Patient safety

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations today released for review a list of DRAFT Goals and Requirements that will be considered for potential inclusion in the 2008 National Patient Safety Goals. The National Patient Safety Goals, which are updated annually, are designed to require health care organizations to protect patients from the negative impact of specific health care errors.

The draft Goals include requiring organizations to:

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  improve recognition and response to changes in a patient’s condition;

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  reduce the risk of post-operative complications for patients with obstructive sleep apnea;

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  prevent patient harm associated with health care worker fatigue; and

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  prevent catheter misconnections.

Potential requirements for review also include requiring organizations to investigate and initiate planning for the use of technology to assist with patient identification, and to reduce the likelihood of patient harm associated with the use of anticoagulation therapy.

The list of potential goals and recommendations has been developed by a panel of well-known patient safety experts, including nurses, physicians, risk managers, pharmacists, and other professionals who have hands-on experience in addressing patient safety issues in a variety of health care settings. Each year, this Sentinel Event Advisory Group reviews the current goals.

The field review offers the opportunity for others to share their judgment about the relevance, priority, clarity, ability to measure compliance, time needed to implement and cost of implementation of each potential goal and requirement under consideration.

For more information: www.psqh.com/enews/0107a.html