The post-it reads ‘Don’t use JCAHO as the boogie man to introduce change.’
The Joint Commission, formerly known as JCAHO, is a triennial review of hospital quality and safety.
The Joint Commission wants to make sure that you, as a hospital system, are really doing what you said you are doing.
That’s it.
Not so scary.
I mean, they do have the power to yank Medicare payments, thereby effectively closing the hospital.
However, as long as you are doing what you said you are doing, it really shouldn’t be that bad.
But it sure gets the higher ups’ panties into a bunch.
Tightens some sphincters.
This can goad management to make changes, “because joint commission will be here soon.”
Sometimes these changes are good changes.
Made to make the survey easier.
But sometimes they are bad changes.
Used to make changes in the name of Joint Commission that will make hospital life easier for those people enacting them.
Or to justify a job for someone who has failed up.
Every healthcare worker knows at least two people that I am referring to.
The threat of a Joint Commission survey is not bad.
It just means that the hospital has to tighten up its game a little.
And actually do what we say we are doing.
Do not use the Joint Commission as the boogie man who hides under the bed.
This is just a step to ensure that the hospitals are providing good, quality care.
No more, no less.
Shame on you if you use the boogie man to effect changes that do not make sense in the realm of quality and safety.
Of course, there is always THAT surveyor who makes it their mission in life to nitpick over every, single, little thing.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 