The Joint Commission

Patients who are admitted into the hospital confide in the health care professionals to do the right thing on time all of the time. Accreditation of health care organizations signifies compliance with a set of standards, reassuring the public that quality and patient safety is being met. In the United States, accreditation is voluntary and must be approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, CMS, for the health care organization to receive payment from Medicare or Medicaid (Myers, 2012).

According to Ellis and Hartley (2012), the Joint Commission was established by the American Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians, the American Medical Association, and the Canadian Medical Association in 1951. It is a voluntary, non-profit organization

Established in 2002 by the Joint Commission to address the issue of safety in healthcare were various patient safety goals which dealt with many safety problems the accredited organization might face including medication and communication errors. The Joint Commission has also established National Patient Safety Goals for accredited organizations to follow in order to encourage patient safety by reevaluating the sentinel events data collected every year and revising the goals by omitting achieved goals and creating new ones. Hospitals evaluated by the Joint Commission must demonstrate compliance with the NPSGs as part of the accreditation process (Ellis & Hartley,

There are 3 steps in the process of Universal Protocol. The first is a pre-procedure verification that examines for coexisting health problems and makes sure all supplies needed for surgery are secured. The next step is to mark the site of the procedure, and last, a “time-out” is performed by the surgical team in order to discuss the procedure to be done (Ellis & Hartley,