JCAHO Update for Infection Control
Federal patient safety legislation signed into law
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations hailed the enactment of federal patient safety legislation that will encourage the voluntary reporting of medical errors, serious adverse events, and their underlying causes.
Preventing these occurrences represents one of the greatest challenges to health care.
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 will promote cultures of safety across health care settings by establishing federal protections that encourage thorough, candid examinations of the causes of health care errors and the development of effective solutions to prevent their recurrence.
"This bill is a breakthrough in the blame-and-punishment culture that has literally held a death grip on health care," said Dennis S. O’Leary, MD, president of the Joint Commission.
"When caregivers feel safe to report errors, patients will be safer because we can learn from these events and put proven solutions into place," he explained.
Since first encouraging similar legislation in 1997, the Joint Commission and other health care and patient safety advocates have testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees to urge passage of a comprehensive patient safety bill.
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act provides full federal privilege to patient safety information that is transmitted to a patient safety organization. The Joint Commission expects to create or become part of a patient safety organization under the auspices of its new International Center for Patient Safety and seek federal approval under a new process to be created by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Continuing analyses of the underlying causes of adverse events that have been reported to the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Database permits the Joint Commission to regularly alert the health care community to potential patient safety dangers and provide recommendations regarding preventive solutions. However, the number of adverse-event reports submitted to the Joint Commission each year represents a small fraction of the actual number of adverse events that experts estimate occur.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations hailed the enactment of federal patient safety legislation that will encourage the voluntary reporting of medical errors, serious adverse events, and their underlying causes.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content. TESTING
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