New Communications Requirements
Accreditation Monthly
May 11, 2010
Perhaps you were one of the 1,000 people who attended The Joint Commission's (TJC) recent webinar during which an overview of the approved Patient-Provider Communications standards was provided. The influence of diversity on healthcare equity was emphasized, and since communication is viewed as a shared responsibility in the organization, the new standards require an integrated approach at multiple levels within the hospital. This includes incorporating data collection and assessment into the QAPI plan for monitoring effectiveness. The standards focus on three areas: effective communication, addressing specific patient needs, and data collection and use. TJC feels that these standards go beyond the current expectations, focusing on the safety and quality of care provided and not merely on culture or language services.
Approach
Most noteworthy is TJC's recommendation that organizations need to determine how best to meet their patients' needs by performing a self-assessment of their current practices. Hospitals must then decide how to handle the issue of health literacy for the populations they serve and use the data to make improvements in the process.
There will be a "Roadmap" document available for download on TJC's website at the end of May, which is intended to act as an implementation guide and includes other features such as best practices, references, and tools for hospitals to use.
Implementation
The standards have been approved and were subsequently reviewed with focus groups. Although feedback was positive, there were concerns raised about the resources needed to implement them. As a result, there is no definitive implementation date, although the standards will be printed in the 2011 hospital accreditation manual. Criteria for scoring have also not been determined, but the surveyors will be trained and start reviewing the standards (probably by reviewing hospital data and patient resources available) through 2011. It is not anticipated that the standards will be incorporated into a hospital's scoring decision before January 2012, but you might want to think about completing your assessment soon to establish a baseline. Some hospitals have established a multidisciplinary working group to ensure that all aspects of care are represented as they study and address this issue.
Laure Dudley, May 2010
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