As part of its Standards Improvement Initiative launched in 2006, the Joint Commission has revised standards, rationales, and elements of performance for 2009. The standards, to take effect Jan. 1, 2009, have been placed online to give all healthcare organizations time to become familiar with the new language, ordering, and numbering.
No new requirements have been added; however, chapter overviews, standards, introductions, rationales, and elements of performance have been redesigned for ease of use, and requirements have been split or consolidated. Also, standards have been renumbered and reordered to allow electronic sorting as well as the addition of new requirements in the future. A history tracking report is available online to help organizations see what happened to each standard, its new number, and how it changed.
Phase 1 of the initiative has focused on the accreditation programs for hospitals, critical access hospitals, ambulatory care, office-based surgery, and home care organizations; phase 2 for behavioral health care, laboratory, and long-term care accreditation programs began in 2008 and the standards changes will take effect in January 2010. Access the Standards Improvement Initiative web page.
