JCAHO: No need to repeat ourselves
New standards manual eliminates duplicates
Home care organizations reading through the new standards manual from the Joint Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) may notice it's a little shorter than last year's version. That's because about 10 standards have been eliminated, says Maryann Popovich, RN, MPH, director of home care accreditation services at JCAHO.
But the finished manual, which is being reviewed currently, also has one new standard, says Popovich. It has no number yet, but will be included in the Rights and Ethics chapter of the manual. It reads as follows:
"The organization protects the integrity of clinical decision making regardless of how it compensates or shares financial risk with its leaders, managers, clinical staff and physicians."
Popovich tells Homecare Quality Management the new standard reflects the fears many patients and their loved ones have that if money can be saved by not taking a particular action, or by not explaining or providing a particular treatment, then an organization will sacrifice the health of the patient to save that money. Even if such situations are rare, Popovich says, the reality is that more and more organizations are sharing financial risk with clinicians. "This is an attempt to address that," she says.
As for the elimination of 10 or so standards, Popovich says they are all items that were duplicated elsewhere in the manual. In at least one case, it was a standard that was inserted into two chapters verbatim.
The new manual should be available later in the summer.
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