Joint Commission Report Details Hospital Safety and Quality

The Joint Commission released its first annual report “Improving American Hospitals: A Report on Quality and Safety”. The report contains performance findings of accredited hospitals with respect to standardized national measures and the National Patient Safety Goals developed by the Joint Commission in 2005.

The report is based on collected data from 2002 to 2005 using on standardized tools. Hospital Quality Measures cover five areas of performance. The measures represent a collaborative approach by the Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). To comply with accreditation, hospitals must report on three of the five areas.

Importantly, the report documented vast differences in safety and compliance with best practice standards formulated by states. Other specific findings from the report include:

Increases in quality of care and safety were most dramatic in categories where the baseline was the lowest. The largest increase was noted for counseling patients who had been admitted for pneumonia about smoking cessation. The rate increased form 37 to 80 percent.
While performance is improved, continued efforts are required to meet program goals. Two areas that require attention are vaccination of patients with pneumonia and providing heart failure patients with adequate discharge instructions.
Performance across the five domains varied; few hospitals performed well on multiple measures. Moreover, more than 90 percent of hospitals had high performance ratings in only one area.
Compliance with procedures to identify patients before surgery is the lowest among the National Patient Safety Goals.

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March 21, 2007 Related topics: Quality, Safety, Errors