Retained objects now considered reviewable
Foreign objects retained after surgery now are considered sentinel events.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations recently announced the addition to its list of errors that automatically are considered so egregious as to require extensive investigation.
The official wording added to the list of sentinel events subject to review by the Joint Commission is "unintended retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other procedure."
A sentinel event is defined by the Joint Com-mission as an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury or the risk thereof.
The organization also recently updated its deadlines for reporting accreditation information. In support of the Shared Visions-New Pathways approach, a new accreditation participation requirement (APR) has been established that requires timely submission of data and other information to the Joint Commission from accredited organizations.
These submissions include, but are not limited to, the accreditation contract, annual updates to the organization’s e-app, and the annual update to the periodic performance review.
Failure to comply with the APR after 31 days results in provisional accreditation. A 61-delay results in conditional accreditation. After 91 days, accreditation is denied, and organizations will not be afforded any appeal opportunities for this decision.
Organizations are notified of required submissions by e-mail and through postings on the "Jayco" extranet.
In other Joint Commission news, the Joint Commission has affirmed its "do-not-use" list of abbreviations and, effective immediately, has eliminated a related stipulation that each health care organization identify an additional three organization-specific do-not-use abbreviations.
For accreditation purposes, the official do-not-use list will apply, at a minimum, to all orders and all medication-related documentation that are handwritten (including free text computer entry) or on preprinted forms.
The Joint Commission reports that failure to substantially eliminate the utilization of do-not-use abbreviations in medication orders remains — at 27% — one of the most frequent noncompliance findings during its surveys.
The do-not-use list originally was created by the Joint Commission as part of the requirements for meeting National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) requirement 2b: Standardize a list of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols that are not to be used throughout the organization.
While no additions will be made to the official do-not-use list at this time, the Joint Commission reports that the following items will be reviewed annually for possible inclusion as part of the development of future NPSGs:
- the symbols > and <;
- all abbreviations for drug names;
- apothecary units;
- the symbol @;
- the abbreviation cc;
- the abbreviation µg.
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