Over the past 25 years, the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has changed its guidelines regarding religious/spiritual care of hospitalized patients to increase attention concerning this aspect of hospital-based care. Little empirical evidence assesses the extent to which hospitals relied on hospital chaplains as care providers during these years. This study inv...

A process to collect universal, mandatory autotransfusion (ATS) procedure quality indicators to measure and monitor ATS quality improvement was designed and implemented by Fresenius Medical Care Extracorporeal Alliance (FMCEA) an outsource provider of extracorporeal services. The indicator program collected and evaluated data that reflect real-world extracorporeal clinical practices and outcome...

Physician performance failures are not rare and pose substantial threats to patient welfare and safety. Few hospitals respond to such failures promptly or effectively. Failure to ensure the quality and safety of the performance of colleagues is a breach of medicine's fiduciary responsibility to the public. A major reason for this deficiency is the hospitals' lack of formal systems to monitor ph...

The authors should thank the authors of letter entitled "Iran Hospital Accreditation system" for their criticisms. In response to this letter, which includes some criticisms about our letter entitled "The Accreditation of Hospitals in Iran", the following points can be made: The overall purpose of this letter was to look at the status of accreditation from the past to the present time and had o...

Effective July 1, 2016, The Joint Commission Behavioral Health Care Accreditation Program will include permanent housing support services standards related to a “housing first” program model. The new standards, which are designed to assist individuals with serious mental illness, substance use disorders, or other behavioral health care issues, will appear in the “Care, Treatment, and Services” ...

anaging risk is not optional for organizations. Clause 0.1 of ISO 9004 mentions risk management in the same breath with cost and benefit considerations as being important to an organization, its customers and interested parties. Clause 5.4.2 also includes risk assessment and mitigation data as necessary inputs for efficient and effective quality planning. Some sectors, particularly aerospace an...

Four national healthcare organizations - Accreditation Canada, the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada - recently collaborated to better understand and share comprehensive information about medication reconciliation in Canada. This article summarizes the key findings of their joint report titled ...

The Joint Commission regularly aggregates standards compliance data to pinpoint areas that present the greatest challenges to accredited organizations and certified programs. These data help The Joint Commission recognize trends and tailor education around challenging standards; National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs); the Universal Protocol for Preventing Wrong Site, Wrong Procedure, and Wrong P...

The Joint Commission added several new requirements applicable to accredited behavioral health care organizations that provide care for individuals with eating disorders. The requirements will appear in the “Care, Treatment, and Services” (CTS), “Leadership” (LD), “Performance Improvement” (PI), and “Rights and Responsibilities” (RI) chapters in the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Behavi...