Emergency Department JCAHO Standards

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) is tasked with publishing voluntary operational standards that can be applied in a wide range of health care settings, including emergency departments. JCAHO standards exist to assist health care providers in offering safe, high quality service to patients.

History

• A group of four independent hospital standard setting associations from the United States and Canada, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), joined forces in 1951 to create the Joint Commission. According to jointcommission.org, JCAHO was formed as a non-profit organization dedicated to providing voluntary international standards and accreditation in the health care field. The commission has grown in popularity and importance since its inception, and is recognized by the US Department of Human Services as a vital standard setting institution.

Requirements

• JCAHO certification requires your company to comply with a series of standards related to patient safety, quality of care, organizational effectiveness, and market leadership. In addition to submitting to initial certification audits and paying a certification fee, your organization must submit to annual audits to ensure continued compliance, and must pay an annual certification maintenance fee.

Safety Standards

• The majority of JCAHO standards are concerned with patient safety and risk management. Standards EC 1.10.1, EC 2.10.1, and EC 3.10.1 deal with creating and implementing thorough management plans to handle environmental safety issues, security risks, and hazardous waste materials. Standard EC 1.10.2 details the required activities of safety coordinators; standard EC 2.10.6 governs the installation of security systems and controlled access points. Standards concerning hazardous gasses, emergency hazard response procedures, and consistent labeling of materials are covered in the EC 3.10 series.

Administrative Standards

• According to cms.h2e-online.org, seven human resource standards strictly require that emergency department staff and volunteers be thoroughly trained in and tested on all aspects of their job before performing any job duties. Employees must demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of security policies, hazardous waste management procedures, and incident reporting procedures in addition to organization-specific policies, mission and service methods.

  The LD 1.30 series of standards details a standard set of policies for responding to recommendations by JCAHO and regulatory agencies, as well as changes to current regulations.

Benefits

• Aside from assisting in legal compliance, which itself is a large benefit, accreditation by the Joint Commission can give your emergency department, and your entire organization, a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Costly litigation for malpractice and other liability issues can often be avoided by following the comprehensive safety standards set by the Joint Commission; a health care organization can never be too careful with patient safety issues.