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JCAHO announces 2006 National Patient Safety Goals

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, June 2, 2005

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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) released its 2006 National Patient Safety Goals on Tuesday. Two new requirements call for tighter control on "hand-offs" of patients between hospital departments and better labeling of medications in a perioperative setting.

The hand-off requirement would standardize the point of transfer between caregivers, with an emphasis on asking and answering questions to prevent communication errors.

The labeling requirement would tighten control over medications, containers and solutions in a perioperative setting for facilities with surgical or invasive services.

The JCAHO has also retired a requirement to ban concentrated electrolytes from patient care areas. A requirement on free-flow protection for patient-controlled analgesia pumps has also been retired. Both will now be added to the JCAHO's standards

Six "do not use" abbreviations have also been affirmed in the 2006 goals, but a clause requiring hospitals to add three in-house prohibited abbreviations has been deleted. The use of unauthorized abbreviations remains one of the largest areas of non-compliance in JCAHO surveys.

To read the JCAHO press release, click here. To see the complete list of 2006 NPSGs, click here.

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