Study: Hospitals With Joint Commission Approval Safer

Study: Hospitals With Joint Commission Approval Safer

Hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission are more likely to have implemented systems to promote patient safety, according to a study published in the May/June 2007 issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management.

Further, accreditation was found to be the most significant factor, even though researchers also considered hospital size, management (such as for-profit or non-profit) and location (such as rural or urban).

"Accreditation status was the only organizational characteristic that consistently emerged in identifying which hospitals have more extensively implemented patient safety systems," the authors write.

Patient safety initiatives undertaken by the hospitals include computerized physician order entry systems, computerized test results, assessment of adverse events, use of data in patient safety programs, specific patient safety policies, handling adverse event/error reporting, root cause analysis and medication management.