Joint Commission Mission Statement Analysis

Abstract

Joint Commission’s mission statement is that all people always experience the safest, highest quality, best-value health care across all settings. This certification is recognized as a symbol of quality that the healthcare organization is committed to the implementation and meeting these standards (“History of the Joint Commission,” n.d.). National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) were launched to help accredited healthcare organizations address specific areas of concern regarding patient safety. Every year 251,000 death occur from human error making it the third leading cause of death in the United States (Makary & Daniel, 2016). By cultivating an environment where safety is a priority a facility can reduce harm to the patients, thus
This certification is recognized as a symbol of quality that the healthcare organization is committed to the implementation and meeting these standards (“History of the Joint Commission,” n.d.). The Joint Commission’s mission statement is that all people always experience the safest, highest quality, best-value health care across all settings. National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) is a program that was established by the organization in the early 2000’s. These goals were launched to help accredited healthcare organizations address specific areas of concern regarding patient safety. The Joint Commission staff works with a Patient Safety Advisory Group; consisting of physicians, administrators, nurses, employers, quality experts, consumer advocates and educators to identify emerging patient safety issues. They then determine the highest safety concerns and the best way to address them. They also determine which goals are applicable to a specific accreditation program or if the goal needs to be adjusted for a specific program. Most standards are focused on medication use, infection control, surgery, and anesthesia, transfusions, emergency management, and security. Ambulatory clinics, hospital, home care, office-based surgery, laboratory, and behavioral health settings all function differently therefore different goals would need to be
As previously mentioned, the first goal discussed was improving the accuracy of patient identification. The facilities need to use at least two patient identifiers when providing care, treatment, and service to meet this goal. Joint Commission explains that wrong-patient errors happen in practically all phases of diagnosis and treatment. The purpose for this goal is two-fold: first, to dependably identify the individual as the person for whom the service or treatment is intended; second, to match the service to that individual. Joint Commission states that acceptable identifiers are the individual’s name, an assigned identification number, telephone number, or other person-specific identifier. So, comparing the individual's stated name with the name on the requisition would be one identifier. Examples of a second identifier for a care recipient without an armband might be date of birth, social security number, home address, or phone number (“Ambulatory,”