When was The Joint Commission founded

The Joint Commission
The Joint Commission is the accrediting body for all health care organizations within the United States. All facilities within the United States must be accredited by the Joint Commission in order to become licensed to provide health care services. The objective of this paper is to inform the reader about the Joint Commission. This paper will discuss the history of the Joint Commission, how they accredit healthcare organizations, and the benefits of the accrediting body.
The Joint Commission was initially founded in 1913 by the American College of Surgeons. At this time, the purpose of the Joint Commission was to provide voluntary inspections of hospitals in order to ensure that the hospitals were providing safe practices.…show more content…
The Canadian Medical Association is no longer affiliated with JCI. The Joint Commission now divided into three separate sub organizations within the main organization. The first branch is called the Joint Commission Resources and provides all of the educational and consultation material. The second branch is the Joint Commission International and is responsible for providing the Joint Commission to foreign countries. The third branch is known as the Center for Transforming Healthcare, and was established in order to accredit organizations in order to establish continuous solutions and guidance for healthcare organizations (Zerwekh…show more content…
The Joint Commission is a highly reputable organization within the healthcare community and facilities that are accredited by the Joint Commission often have an advantage over non-accredited facilities within their community. Consumers understand that facilities accredited by the Joint Commission will provide a higher quality of care than other facilities (Joint 2013.) Another very big benefit associated with being accredited by the Joint Commission is the acceptance of Medicare and Medicaid. In order for a healthcare facility to receive payment from Medicare and Medicaid, the facility must have passed the accreditation process by the Joint Commission. The acceptance of Medicare and Medicaid payment plays a giant role when looking at the business side of healthcare. Consumers who only have Medicare or Medicaid without any additional health insurance are only able to afford facilities that except their insurance. Therefore, facilities that are accredited by the Joint Commission will have a much larger consumer base than unaccredited facilities (Salera

The Joint Commission is an independent, not-for-profit group in the United States that administers voluntary accreditation programs for hospitals and other healthcare organizations. The commission develops performance standards that address crucial elements of operation, such as patient care, medication safety, infection control and consumer rights.

Most state governments require that healthcare organizations receive Joint Commission accreditation as a condition for licensing and Medicaid reimbursement. Also, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recognizes the results of Joint Commission surveys, meaning healthcare facilities that receive Joint Commission accreditation can participate in the federal Medicare program. Organizations that are not surveyed by the Joint Commission or other accrediting group can choose a CMS survey as part of their Medicare participation requirements.

The Joint Commission presently accredits more than 20,500 healthcare programs and organizations in the U.S. To keep its Joint Commission accredited status, a healthcare organization is subject to an onsite evaluation performed by a Joint Commission survey group at least every three years. Laboratories must undergo reviews every two years.

Joint Commission surveys are individually designed for organizations and are meant to guide and evaluate the organization's performance in the areas of patient safety, treatment and care quality. From 18 to 36 months after a full Joint Commission survey, accredited organizations can have an unannounced survey.

The Joint Commission standards function as the foundation for healthcare organizations to gauge and enhance their performance. These standards focus on quality care and patient safety. The Joint Commission develops standards criteria based on feedback and interactions with consumers, healthcare professionals and government agencies. The standards go through a comprehensive development process, which includes conversations with advisors, preparation of draft standards and reviews by outside experts. Prospective standards are also published on the Joint Commission's website and made available for public comment before being approved by the group's board of commissioners.

The Joint Commission accredits the following types of organizations:

• General, psychiatric, children's, rehabilitation and critical access hospitals
• Home care organizations, including medical equipment services, pharmacy and hospice services
• Nursing homes and other long term care facilities
• Behavioral healthcare organizations and addiction services
• Ambulatory care providers, including group practices and office-based surgery practices
• Independent or freestanding clinical laboratories

The Joint Commission also certifies the following services offered at healthcare organizations:

• Disease-specific care certification
• Advanced certification in disease-specific care and palliative care
• Certification for healthcare staffing services
• Behavioral health and primary care medical home certification (for behavioral health facilities and ambulatory care facilities, hospitals and critical access hospitals)

The Joint Commission was founded in 1951 as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. In 1953, JCAH began accrediting hospitals. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 passed by Congress stated that hospitals accredited by JCAH were permitted to participate in the Medicaid and Medicare programs. In 1987, it became the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). In 2007, the JCAHO name was shortened to The Joint Commission.

The Joint Commission's corporate members include the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, the American Dental Association, the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association. The Board of Commissioners overseeing the organization includes a consumer advocate, administrators, employers, educators, quality experts, as well as doctors and nurses.

Joint Commission Resources (JCR), a global affiliate group, oversees Joint Commission International (JCI). Joint Commission International works with many types of healthcare organizations around the world with a goal of helping them advance achieve safe and quality patient care, by providing advisory assistance, accreditation and certification. The Joint Commission founded JCI in 1994.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations was founded in 1951 as a private, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits hospitals and other healthcare organizations. In 1987, the JCAHO launched its Agenda for Change to create a more modern and sophisticated accreditation process to place primary emphasis on actual performance. Coincident with this new emphasis, a number of task forces were established, including two for infection control standards.

The Joint Commission (TJC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization created in 1951 that accredits more than 20,000 US health care programs and organizations.[1] TJC's goal and mission are to ensure quality healthcare for patients, prevent harm, and improve patient advocacy. About 70 to 80% of TJC functions directly address the issue of patient safety. The Joint Commission's stated mission is: "To continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value." TJC has specific quality measures holding healthcare organizations accountable for health-related outcomes. TJC offers an unbiased assessment of the organizations' quality achievement in patient care and safety. It mainly accredits organizations in the US but also in many other countries around the globe. The certification by TJC provides organizations with a 'report card' format for ease of understanding in healthcare consumers.

TJC aims to avoid medical errors and non-compliance in healthcare organizations by evaluating other factors that could affect patient safety and care. Such factors include, but are not limited to, multi-tasking, interruptions, worker fatigue, communication issues, and more.[2][3] TJC visits hospitals between 18 to 36 months since their last hospital survey, and they select patients to complete the survey about their hospital stay. Both performance standards and outcome measures are traced through surveys by the TJC. Commonly, TJC announces their visit at the start of the week and appears at the organization on the day of the announcement. Hence, the visits are considered unannounced as healthcare organizations must continuously prepare for the visit. TJC certification is necessary for hospitals to obtain liability insurance, operated with support from the state and federal government in the form of Medicare and Medicaid payors. 

TJC has specific standards and quality measures for holding healthcare organizations accountable to protect the public for safety in a standardized format:

• Standards are based on the reported adverse events by organizations that may or may not cause harm to patients, such as medication errors, incorrect site in surgical procedures, and miscommunication among healthcare providers.

• Quality measures have their basis on health-related population-focused commonalities, such as congestive heart failure patients with frequent readmissions and pressure ulcers acquired by patients while being hospitalized.

TJC helps hospitals and healthcare facilities to gain reputation by awarding them accreditation. These health care organizations are reviewed every 2 to 3 years. If organizations are compliant with all the standards, they receive accreditation. Otherwise, organizations must develop plans of action to improve safety and quality to satisfy the TJC. If a facility would like to be accredited by TJC, they pay a fee to the agency. After they have received a passing grade, they can display the results to the public. There is a fee of about $46,000 per year to keep the accreditation. 

The accreditation is crucial to demonstrate compliance and commitment to patient safety. TJC adopts a tracer methodology to survey hospitals on compliance with safety.[4] The on-site survey process is to identify performance issues in the hospitals through individual tracer activity, system tracer activity, and accreditation program-specific tracers. 

• Individual: Tracing a patient's experiences while obtaining care at the hospital during the utilization of the facility's treatment and services through the course of care. For example, the tracing can start with a patient arriving in the emergency department and goes through the admitting process in registration, then has triage performed by nurses, receives a medical screening exam by a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner, and subsequently goes through radiology, and laboratory services. 

• System: Involves tracing the experiences of a patient while obtaining care at the hospital with a focus on care coordination, communication, departmental processes, infection control practices, and medication management. For example, the tracing can start with a patient arriving for surgery, starting with registration in admitting office, insurance verification, preoperative services; obtaining radiology service, diagnostic department for electrocardiogram; going through the surgery department, recovery department with a discharge process or a transfer to an inpatient unit. 

• Program-specific: Evaluating a specific program's risk and safety concerns within an organization that provides a particular treatment or service and may be high-risk or high-volume patient populations. An example of this type of certification is a stroke program or a comprehensive cardiac care program.

Preparing for TJC evaluations and surveys can be a difficult task for healthcare organizations and their workers. The organizations must be up to date with TJC standards, policies, processes, and procedures at all times due to the common practice by TJC of unannounced visits. For example, the Joint Commission has Quality Measures for Acute Myocardial Infection or Congestive Heart Failure. This resource is useful for healthcare providers to make sure they do not overlook any highly effective measures. These checklist items allow for organization and consistency to ensure that each hospital is doing what it must to improve standardization across the hospitals. 

The Joint Commission has seven foundations of safe and effective transitions of care to home for patients [5]:

• Leadership support: Support stakeholders' senior leaders to invest in finding solutions for reducing readmissions.

• Multidisciplinary collaboration: Collaborations among healthcare professionals in an interprofessional approach to achieve optimal outcomes and avoid readmission for cost reduction.

• Early identification of patients/clients at risk: Encourage healthcare providers to identify at-risk patients early and factors that may affect health outcomes such as health literacy and confidence in self-care with discharge education.

• Transitional planning: Coordination and plan of care must be continuous among providers, organizations, and suppliers to ensure patients having the necessary equipment and medications when departing the hospital.

• Medication management: Health literacy assessment and appropriate education on drugs and ensuring patients get the necessary physical medications at the time of discharge. Medications prescribed in prescription may not be necessarily available to patients due to insurance or backorders.

• Patient and family action/engagement: Family engagement is crucial in the patient's health. Recovering from illness necessitates the family's involvement in caring for the patient.

• Transfer of information: It is imperative to have a successful transfer of information to provide healthcare providers with crucial details for properly caring for discharged patients.

Review Questions

1.

Patterson CH. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 1995 Jan;16(1):36-42. [PubMed: 7897172]

Rosenberg K. The joint commission addresses health care worker fatigue. Am J Nurs. 2014 Jul;114(7):17. [PubMed: 25742336]

Morey TE, Sappenfield JW, Gravenstein N, Rice MJ. Joint Commission and Regulatory Fatigue/Weakness/Overabundance/Distraction: Clinical Context Matters. Anesth Analg. 2015 Aug;121(2):394-6. [PubMed: 26197372]

Siewert B. The Joint Commission Ever-Readiness: Understanding Tracer Methodology. Curr Probl Diagn Radiol. 2018 May - Jun;47(3):131-135. [PubMed: 28648468]

Labson MC. Adapting the joint commission's seven foundations of safe and effective transitions of care to home. Home Healthc Now. 2015 Mar;33(3):142-6. [PMC free article: PMC4541023] [PubMed: 25742092]