Joint Commission releases new inpatient psych measures

The Joint Commission has released a new set of seven inpatient psychiatric measures for use with the group's Oryx performance-measurement requirements. Eventually, the data will appear on the Commission's Quality Check website, which offers quality data comparisons for hospitals. The measures, which go into effect Oct. 1, are admission screening for violence risk, substance use, psychological-trauma history and patient strengths assessment; hours of physical restraint use, hours of seclusions use, patients discharged on multiple antipsychotic drugs, patients on multiple anti-psychotics with appropriate justification, post-discharge plan created and post-discharge continuing-care plan transmitted to next level of care provider on discharge. Now, the Joint Commission is asking for an endorsement of the measures from the National Quality Forum.

To learn more about the standards:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece (reg. req.)