News, Consumer Health: Patient Safety, The Joint Commission and Health Science Libraries

” The mission of the Joint Commission is to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations. “

Quote: From the Joint Commission website

For decades, hospital staff and librarians referred to “Jake-O standards” which was shorthand for The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO) – now renamed as the Joint Commission. A notice of a scheduled field review visit from JC has a way of focusing the attention of everyone in the building.

Below is a screenshot of the top portion of the Joint Commission main webpage – to illustrate the many areas of health care facilities standards and administrative guidance that the organization influences:

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Under the general category of Patient Safety, a new intelligence report (dated Apr 21 2008 ) entitled “One Size Does Not Fit All: Meeting the Health Care Needs of Diverse Populations” has been issued by the Commission. This 60-page report is available to view online, at no cost, from: http://www.jointcommission.org/PatientSafety/HLC/ (PDF link).

Please also see related links from the Joint Commission website regarding:

• National Patient Safety Goals 2008
• Health Literacy
• International Center for Patient Safety

It is encouraging that the Joint Commission does recognize the contributions that hospital libraries (and librarians) add to the overall success and mission of the health care institutions which it governs.

Published in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association is the current version of “Standards for Hospital Libraries: 2007” (PDF link). Several health science librarians from Connecticut have worked on revisions of these standards since 2002.