TX

As a nurse with a very long career of dealing with the Joint Commission in the hospital environment, I am quite thankful there is FINALLY going to be a choice for Providers when pursuing accreditation. Joint Commission has long had a bully pulpit for imposing their will on the healthcare industry and often with no better outcome for the patient consumer. I have more than two dozen survey experiences with the Joint Commission under my belt and I can tell you that after working through all the chaos and anxiety perpetrated on the healthcare workforce at any given survey site - the positive effects of preparing for survey are often short lived. It has been my experience that once Joint Commission is gone, the staff revert back to business as usual in most cases and clean up their act again in another three years. I have spoken at length with developers of the new DNV accrediting program and I am excited to see this new approach to accreditation of healthcare providers. I also believe it will set a new tone for living the standards daily as they are looking at the providers on an annual basis. Joint Commission claims to focus on Patient safety, quality initiatives and competency. The president who lead the Joint Commission for 21 years until recently, Dr. Dennis O'Leary, admitted in June of 2006 that he wouldn't want to go to a hospital without an advocate around. "I would bring someone with me and have them stay the night, and I would always be asking questions", said O'Leary. "I think caregivers find that helpful, and it prevents them from making human errors. If I go in a hospital, I know I'm vulnerable, and I will do what I can do to protect caregivers from unintentionally harming me. If I'm apprehensive, I'm the same as John Q. Public." This from the man charged for years with leading the organization setting the standards for quality improvement and patient safety. In regards to qulity initiatives, we only have to look to the Senate Finance Committee and the GAO (Federal Office) to know that investigation after investigation brings into question the effectiveness of the Joint Commission's approach to validating quality and competency. The DNV approach will set the stage for providers and staff to become more accustomed to the standards and make them more and more a routine of daily performance. By building on the ISO 9000 foundation for management standards, efficiency and compliance will find its way into the normal ebb and flow of the daily operations of an organization. Annual or tri-annual periods of chaos and anxiety should become a thing of the past for the workforce. I fully endorse the idea of CMS bestowing deeming status to this organization and its healthcare accreditation program.