Joint Commission calls on C-suite to promote healthcare safety

The term “culture of safety” has become commonplace in the vernacular of U.S. healthcare facilities, yet variation in safety remains prevalent. As organizations pursue efforts to boost quality, improve outcomes and reduce patient harm, a new Joint Commission resource is aiming its message at hospital leadership.

The C-suite often struggles with creating the top-down infrastructure needed to drive an integrated safety system, the Joint Commission says. “Some hospitals have figured it out,” said Dr. Ana Pujols-McKee, executive vice president of the Joint Commission, which accredits more than 3,300 U.S. hospitals. “We see some that are well on the journey toward high reliability. But we also have organizations that are struggling, and there are many more somewhere in between.”

To help leadership define and structure their initiatives, the Joint Commission released new guidance Monday. The new Patient Safety Systems chapter is included in the 2015 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual being distributed to accredited U.S. hospitals over the next few weeks. The group is also making this particular resource available for free online to anyone.

When leadership does not manage patient safety and quality initiatives, between 75% and 80% of the projects fail, the manual says. The resource, which pulls from standards that had previously been spread throughout the manual, can be used as a road map for how to: establish a standardized reporting process for staff accountability; determine the tools needed to collect, manage and analyze data; proactively initiative effective risk management strategies; and include patients in the process.

“None of this is possible without leadership,” said Frank Federico, executive director of strategic partners at the Cambridge, Ma.-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He also serves on the Joint Commission's patient safety advisory group. Leaders at all levels in care-delivery organizations are struggling with how to focus their efforts, and typically responsibilities have been divvied among staff focusing individually on areas of quality improvement, patient safety or accreditation.

Though the standards outlined in the new Joint Commission chapter are not new, bringing them together into one resource provides clearer guidance for leaders on how all of the components should work together, Federico said.

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