• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

JCAHO to lead world effort to fight medical errors

Quality Improvement Monitor, August 25, 2005

The JCAHO will coordinate an international effort to reduce medical errors, the World Health Organization announced August 23.

The accrediting agency and its affiliate, Joint Commission International, will head up a four-year effort to analyze errors and best practices to improve patient safety and spread solutions worldwide, officials said. The aim is to reduce harm that impacts nearly 10% of hospitalized patients.

"That's really the task that the Joint Commission-with all of its expertise-is taking on for us," said Liam Donaldson, MD, chair of the WHO's World Health Alliance for Patient Safety. "This is not some remote problem in some far-flung corner of the world. Patient safety can affect every mother, every father, every child."

A network of organizations, including the National Patient Safety Foundation and Britain's National Patient Safety Agency, will work with the commission to identify existing solutions, needs, and priorities, said Karen Timmons, president and chief executive officer of Joint Commission International. Officials could then tailor solutions to individual problems in different areas of the world.

Safety data and solutions could come from a range of sources, including the JCAHO's sentinel-event database, National Patient Safety Goals best practices, and the International Patient Safety Goals, which the commission will field-test in 2006, said Peter Angood, MD, chief patient safety officer at the Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive