JCAHO eases ORYX reports for smaller facilities
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, has made it easier for some smaller health care organizations to meet its ORYX requirements.
Hospitals with an average daily census of less than 10 and outpatient visits of less than 150 per month now can use simplified ORYX requirements if they are using Joint Commission measure templates. Other eligible groups are small home care organizations with an average annual census of less than 120, behavioral health care organizations providing only non-24-hour care, and behavioral health care organizations providing 24-hour care with an average daily census of less than 10.
The simplified requirements mean these organizations are no longer required to select measures exclusively from Joint Commission tem plates. Rather, they may select measures from any relevant source, including literature, performance measurement systems, or internally developed measures, according to a recent announcement from the Joint Commission.
Joint Commission officials eased the requirements in response to complaints from accredited organizations, which indicated that the measure templates artificially limited their ability to choose meaningful performance measures. Officials hope the simplified requirements will enhance organizations’ abilities to choose measures that are most relevant to their patient populations and strategic measurement objectives. With the simplified requirements, the Joint Commission says small organizations will have the opportunity to choose their measures and report those selections to the Joint Commission on a standardized reporting form that will be mailed to eligible organizations.
These are the requirements recently announced by the Joint Commission:
• Small hospitals were required to choose four measures by the end of 1998 and are required to choose two more (total of six) by the end of 1999.
• Behavioral health care organizations providing non-24-hour care and those providing 24-hour care with an average daily census of less than 10 are required to choose two measures by June 30, 1999 (reduced from four in the original requirements), and two more (total four) by the end of 1999.
• Small home care organizations are required to choose four measures by the end of 1999.
"Surveyors will assess organizations’ use of selected measures in their performance improvement activities during the on-site survey process," according to the Joint Commission’s announcement. "Organizations will be expected to demonstrate, for each measure, the ability to collect data reliably, conduct credible analyses of the data, and initiate appropriate system and process improvements. In the future, eligible organizations will be expected to select and enroll in a listed performance measurement system when core measures relevant to their services are identified."
[For details, call the ORYX Information Line at (630) 792-5085 or e-mail questions to [email protected].]
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