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JCAHO releases 2006 National Patient Safety Goals

Quality Improvement Monitor, June 2, 2005

Hospitals must implement two new National Patient Safety Goals requirements by January 1, 2006.

The JCAHO on May 31 released its annual list of goals for each accreditation program, including hospitals. For each program, the accreditor assigned two new goals or requirements and retired two goals or requirements into its standards manuals.

For hospitals, the new goal requirements are as follows:

• Goal 2 (improve communication among caregivers) requirement 2E-"Implement a standardized approach to 'hand-off' communications, including an opportunity to ask and respond to questions."
• Goal 3 (improve medication safety) requirement 3D-"Label all medications, medication containers (e.g., syringes, medicine cups, basins), or other solutions on and off the sterile field in perioperative and other procedural settings."

And the two retirements-one goal requirement and one entire goal and its only requirement-for hospitals are as follows:

• Goal 3 requirement 3A-Remove all concentrated electrolytes from patient units.
• Goal 5 (improve infusion pump safety) and requirement 5A-All general-use and patient-controlled analgesia intravenous infusion pumps have free-flow protection.

And at first glance, the 2006 goals seem manageable to those in the field, especially the number of them. The JCAHO had released for field review in February a whopping six proposed new goals and 20 proposed requirements.

"The 2006 goals reflect the careful thought that is going into the selection of each year's goals, not only in their content but also on the impact of the goals on the facilities charged with implementing them," says Bradford Wiley, MPA, a patient safety manager for a large naval hospital in Illinois.

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