Standardization

Getting everyone on the team to decide exactly what a leading practice is and how you can ensure it happens for each patient. It is time consuming and requires everyone to truly evaluate what they are doing. It is hard, but for the patient care, it is worth it.

Data Collection

Deciding what data to collect is a challenge. But data is key to process improvement. Ensuring that you are collecting and evaluating the right data and making sure that your team members can see the significance of each piece of data that you collect and how it moves you toward leading practice is so important.

Joint Commission certification promotes excellence and helps to decrease variation, improve processes, decrease the risk of error and improve patient outcomes. The framework of certification provides a roadmap for a foundation in quality and a means for standardization.

Also, the standards are developed with input from an expert technical advisory panel, evidence-based standards, and The Joint Commission’s rigorous review methodology. We require tracking on performance measures to ensure improvements are rooted in the data.

I have been in health care over 45 years now. The Joint Commission didn’t have a great reputation early on. However now, we are truly considered a partner with the organization. We are welcomed into health care organizations because they know that we will evaluate their program fairly, against the highest standards, and provide leading practice and process improvement suggestions that will help to grow and improve their program. We are seen as a resource to help organizations address areas where they have challenges or have questions. Truly, the reviews are a day full of ideas and education now and we enjoy sharing leading practices we observe as we visit programs around the country with others.

It’s an open book test! The best advice I can give everyone is to know your standards manual. Understand each element of performance and how your organization meets it. Be prepared to tell us your story. Don’t prepare your staff for the review, prepare them to provide leading practice care to every patient, every time.