The newly revised 2004 Joint Commission pre-publication standards are now posted on the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) Web site, allowing individuals the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the standards before the accreditation manuals are published in September. A crosswalk is also available to help users navigate between current and new requirements.
The standards become effective January 1, 2004, for the ambulatory care, behavioral health care, home care, hospital, laboratory and long term accreditation programs. The standards for assisted living, critical access hospitals, health care networks and office-based surgery will be revised in 2005.
The revised standards sharpen the focus on processes critical to achieving safe, high quality care and the requirements for 2004 are essentially the same. The modifications represent reformatting, deletions, consolidations or clarifications of existing standards. However, some Elements of Performance that existed in one manual may now be applicable across all manuals, so there may be new expectations in some manuals. In addition, the new format integrates the assessment, care, education and continuum of care chapters into a single provision of care chapter. A second new chapter on medication management consists of revised standards extracted from the care chapter.
For more information on the standards, visit the JCAHO Web site at www.jcaho.org.