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JCAHO approves new National Patient Safety Goals for 2005

Nurse Leader Weekly, July 23, 2004

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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization's (JCAHO) Board of Commissioners has approved new National Patient Safety Goals for 2005.

Missing from the new goals for hospitals are a bar coding requirement and a proposal designed to reduce the risk of surgical fires.

Also absent from the 2005 roster is Goal #4, regarding wrong-site surgery. It is now required by the JCAHO's Universal Protocol. Goal #6, regarding alarm systems, is also gone and has been incorporated into the standards.

The new 2005 goals

Goal #1a: The JCAHO clarifies that organizations must use at least two patient identifiers not only when administering medications, blood products, and taking blood samples and other specimens, but also for any other treatments or procedures.

Goal #2c: This new requirement for reporting critical test results and lab values calls for organizations to measure, assess, and take action to improve the timeliness of reporting these results to the appropriate licensed caregiver.

Goal #3c: Regarding this new requirement to improve the safety of medication use, the JCAHO will expect organizations to identify, and at a minimum, annually review a list of look-alike/sound-alike drugs and to take action to prevent errors involving the interchange of these drugs.

Goal #8a and b: This requires hospitals to accurately and completely reconcile medications across the care continuum.

#8a: The JCAHO will fully implement by January 2006 this requirement to develop a process for involving the patient upon admission in obtaining and documenting a complete list of his or her current medications. This process includes comparing the medications that the organization provides with those on the list.

#8b: This requires organizations to communicate the patient's complete list of medications to the next provider of service whenever referring or transferring the patient to another setting, service, practitioner, or level within or outside the organization.

Goal #9a: This requires organizations to reduce the risk of patient harm from falls by assessing and periodically reassessing each patient's risk for falling.

The JCAHO will likely put the new goals into effect on January 1, 2005. Surveyors will expect organizations in January to have "addressed" the goals, and will expect organizations that are surveyed in February and beyond to have complied with them since January 1, 2005, according to a JCAHO source.

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