JCAHO: Who, What, Where and Why?

As a company used to guide healthcare facilities in the medical standards established by federal and state regulation policies, the JCAHO is a certification many healthcare faciltieis strive to obtain. With over 15, 000 organizations currently under its supervision, the JCAHO has set the standard for certification of the healthcare industry while ensuring compliance with its duties under the Medicare Act of 1965. As a heatlhcare professional, understanding the dynamics of the JCAHO and why it may be important to your employer and patients, is crucially important to continued compliance with the accreditation standards.

As a non-for-profit, independent organization, the JCAHO is the leading organization on accreditation of hospitals. Under the creed of the Medicare Act, in 1965, JCAHO was developed and determined to be the authoritative figure on hospital accredidation and compliance in health and public safety. For a hospital employer, obtaining the accreditiation from the JCAHO will demonstrate to the public that your particular facility, including the employees, are considered to be held in high standards with a cutting edge facility and dynamic risk management programs.

Within the impact on the financial goals of the hospital, the JCAHO accreditation and certification is not a process the hospital management will take lightly. In fact, it is quite common for hospital management to use creative methods to encourage and motivate healthcare staff to provide the most optimal of care and ensure the hospital facility is prepared for the random, unannounced, audits by JCAHO. With this employee encouragement and motivation, the hospital managment commonly holds routine refresher courses in the various elements of the JCAHO accreditation program to ensure the staff is familiar with the Medicare Act requirements.

As with any government regulated program, the JCAHO accreditation does not come without disadvantages. Of these, the JCAHO certification and accreditation program has shown to lack in some consistency and provide a variance of the results from one facility to the next. While, in theory, the JCAHO accreditation should improve the quality of care, research has shown the quality of hospital care does not improve with a JCAHO accreditation. Additionally, the JCAHO accreditation will have very limited impact on the level of care as seen in the results when sorted by the type of care provided at the particular medical facility.

With nearly 80 percent of all U.S. hospitals seeking JCAHO accreditation, the JCAHO provides the public with some knowledge on which to seek medical treamtent. With hospitals randomly surveyed every three years, in 45 crucial areas of healthcare performance, the JCAHO, although somewhat inconsistent, is the best method in providing the information to the public with regard to the hospital's compliance with regulatory standards. As an employee of a hospital, even when unfamiliar with the specific JCAHO auditing elements, just knowing your patient care and levels of expertise will have a significant impact on the outcome of the JCAHO random auditing processes. For more information regarding the JCAHO, visit www.jointcommission.org.