Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)

A study conducted by Johns Hopkins among its own surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses has reached a fairly intuitive conclusion-that a brief pre-operation meeting between surgical team members can lower the number of wrong-person and wrong-site surgeries. In June 2006, Hopkins Hospital implemented a JCAHO policy requiring hospitals to have a pre-surgical conversation in the OR before each and every surgery. In their version, surgical team members hold a two-minute meeting in which all …

According to a new Harvard Medical School analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, patients are more likely to receive high quality care in not-for profit hospitals, at least when it comes to three common conditions. Having more registered nurses, more advanced technology and federal/military designation all have an impact on care quality, too, researchers found. To conduct the study, researchers analyzed how hospitals treated congestive heart failure, acute …

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has released a list of draft patient safety goals and requirements that may be included in the group's 2008 standards. Clinical goals include reducing post-operative risk for patients with obstructive sleep apnea, preventing catheter misconnections and reducing the likelihood of harm from anticoagulation therapy. On the administrative level, JCAHO's targets include preventing harm caused by worker fatigue. Among …

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) plans to begin collecting anonymous patient-level data from hospitals in the second quarter of 2007. The data will be used to check the accuracy of the group's surveys, but won't be used directly for accreditation. Apparently, this isn't such a big deal, as 92 percent of accredited hospitals already provide such data to vendors of performance measurement systems, who then, in turn, pass the data on to JCAHO. And …

Without a doubt, patients can save thousands of dollars if they go overseas to receive high-ticket medical procedures. But do patients know what risks they're undertaking when they go to, say, India to have a coronary bypass performed? Medical tourism companies that facilitate these trips are unregulated. Worse, the hospitals themselves may be unregulated as well, with no need to, say, …

It's time for yet another consumer-driven healthcare effort to toot its horn. Starting in early 2007, Cincinnati residents will have access to quality data on 20 metro area hospitals, trade groups announced. The hospitals are participating voluntarily in the effort, which is backed by the Ohio Hospital Association and the Greater Cincinnati Health Council. The GCHC will provide the data through its website, which already offers reports comparing …

In a strongly-worded editorial, Neil McLaughlin of Modern Healthcare criticizes the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) for accrediting hospitals that he sees as sub-par. For years, McLaughlin writes, the JCAHO has played a dangerous game with hospitals, threatening sanctions and then allowing transgressors to get off scott-free. In the process, executives at the organization have "enriched themselves." It's time for the nonsense to …

The Joint Council on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) is taking heat for a recent decision to change its policies on how it sanctions hospitals. The move comes despite last year's GAO report that found the organization often fails to publicly criticize hospitals with serious problems. Critics say the move is a step in the wrong direction, arguing the threshold for reporting problems involving patient safety should be lowered--not raised. Of course, hospitals often see …

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations warns that hospitals need to do a better of job of tracking the medications patients are on during transfers and at the time of discharge. JCAHO says more than 2,000 incidents of errors involving patients getting double doses of medications, receiving inappropriate dosages or suffering preventable drug interactions were reported last year. The Commission says more emphasis should be placed on patient medication histories in …

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) appears to be backing down in its dispute with the American Hospital Association over the reuse of data JCAHO collects on hospitals. JCAHO had wanted the right to resell some of the information it collects on providers to third parties. The organization had explored a deal with the Blue Cross Association which would have sold access to data the organization collects as part of the accreditation process. …