APPROVED: Certification Option for Home Care Organizations Providing Community-Based Palliative Care.

The Joint Commission recently announced its new Community-Based Palliative Care (CBPC) Certification option for accredited home care organizations. This specialty certification, which recognizes home health and hospice organizations that provide community-based palliative care to patients and their families at home, will be effective July 1, 2016. Using the results of a market research study of its currently accredited home care organizations, The Joint Commission developed the CBPC program as a certification option—that is, organizations seeking to achieve CBPC certification must comply with home care accreditation requirements in addition to CBPC certification requirements. The requirements, which were developed using current palliative care literature such as the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care1 and the Standards of Practice for Pediatric Palliative Care and Hospice2, were evaluated and strongly supported by a palliative care expert panel, focus group participants, and field review survey respondents. The review of CBPC-specific requirements will occur during either the home care accreditation survey or a CBPC extension survey. Once achieved, the CBPC certification option covers a three-year period. Organizations can view the new Community-Based Palliative Care program requirements on The Joint Commission website at http://www.jointcom mission.org/standards_information/prepublication_standards. aspx. The new program standards will be posted in the spring E-dition® update and published in the 2016 Update 1 to the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Home Care. For more information about the Community-Based Palliative Care Certification program for home care organizations, please contact Kathy Clark, MSN, RN, associate project director specialist, Department of Standards and Survey Methods, The Joint Commission, at [email protected]. p