Joint Commission's Goals And Guiding Principles

t on effectiveness of the Adverse and Sentinel Events reporting program developed by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to provide a safe, effective, and efficient environment of care.

By:

Nishant Taneja

Week 7: HSM 542

The Joint Commission’s Goals and Guiding Principles As per The Joint Commission (TJC), “The ultimate purpose of The Joint Commission’s accreditation process is to enhance quality of care and patient safety. Each requirement or standard, the survey process, the Sentinel Event Policy, and other Joint Commission initiatives are designed to help organizations reduce variation, reduce risk, and improve quality. Hospitals should have an integrated approach to patient safety so that

Assisting health care organizations with advancing skills, techniques, knowledge and competence of staff and patients by suggesting methods that will improve quality and safety processes.

3. Encouraging and endorsing proactive quality and patient safety methods that will increase responsibility, trust, and knowledge while reducing the impact of fear and blame.

Patient safety emerges as a central aim of quality. Patient safety, as defined by the World Health Organization,” is the prevention of errors and adverse effects to patients that are associated with health care. Safety is what patients, families, staff, and the public expect from Joint Commission–accredited organizations. While patient safety events may not be completely eliminated, harm to patients can be reduced, and the goal is always zero harm “3 .

Culture of

Permanent harm

3. Severe temporary harm and intervention required to sustain life

These events are referred to as "sentinel" because they signal the need for instant investigation and response. Each accredited organization is strongly encouraged, but not required, to report sentinel events to TJC. Reporting the event allows “lessons learned” from the event to be added to The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Database, thus adding to the general knowledge about sentinel events and to the reduction of risk for such events9.

Based on the type of the organization, there are many other events that qualify as sentinel events such as elopement, abduction, discharge of an infant to wrong family etc. As per Joint Commission’s policy, Accredited hospitals are expected to identify and respond appropriately to all sentinel events (as defined by The Joint Commission) occurring in the hospital or associated with services that the hospital provides.

Response to the Sentinel Events, Root Cause Analysis and Correction Plan

A.