As the largest and oldest healthcare certification organization in the USA, the Joint Commission provides accreditation and certification services that underpin virtually all state licensing and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funding eligibility.
Over 21,000 hospitals and other healthcare providers around the country are currently certified under the auspices of the Joint Commission. The process of preparing for site inspections, certification surveys, and maintaining accreditation status is a significant focus of modern hospital and clinical management and executive teams.
The Vision of the Joint Commission
According to its stated vision, the Joint Commission aims for a health care system where:
“All people always experience the safest, highest quality, best-value health care across all settings.”
In service of this vision, the Joint Commission promotes standards with evidence-based best practices as the necessary measure of achievement. This approach replaces an earlier focus on meeting minimum acceptable benchmarks of performance.
Extending the Best Practice Initiative
With its long, evolving history of developing and certifying standards of patient care, the Joint Commission has increasingly offered educational and technical resources to health care providers. This action is in response to the increased pressure on local resources in keeping up with changing rules and standards on an ongoing basis.
This vision of continuous improvement is based on addressing systems and process factors, as opposed to individual fault-finding, through the application of evidence-based standards and practices. National patient safety goals are a central priority, over and above the accreditation surveys and certification services that the Joint Commission provides.
A Mission for Patient Safety
The Joint Commission is focused on working continuously to establish and maintain standards of safe, high-quality, value-based health care within all institutional settings. Doing this involves managing standards of practice and reporting results across the entire spectrum of healthcare services and resources. The emphasis is on delivering solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders within an organizational culture where patient safety is paramount.
Interim HealthCare Leaders for Certification
For experienced health care leaders and senior managers, interim opportunities are available to serve healthcare organizations in meeting the certification standards. Contact our expert staff at NHS Solutions. Let us help you expand your horizons and make a difference where it is needed most.