What’s “Joint Commission Accreditation” and Why Does it Matter?

As an independent, not-for-profit organization, the Joint Commission is the nation’s oldest and largest standards setting and accrediting body for healthcare. The standards focus on setting expectations for an organization’s actual performance and for assessing its ability to provide safe, high quality care. The idea is that, if an organization does the right things and does them well, patients will experience the best outcomes.

In our healthcare world, Joint Commission surveyors can show up anytime, unannounced, once every three years to ensure that we are complying with Joint Commission accreditation standards. The standards address our level of performance in key functional areas such as medication safety, infection control, patient rights, patient safety, and patient care.

And get this: Joint Commission surveyors can approach any employee and give them a “pop quiz” to gauge how familiar they are with our standards…like, “What is Carson Tahoe Health’s Mission Statement?” or, “How do you keep patients safe when someone calls a Code Blue?” The idea behind this is that ALL of our employees should be familiar with and adhering to ALL of our standards at ALL times. P.S. – Joint Commission accreditation is not cheap. Sounds like boatloads of fun, am I right? So…really?! Why do we even bother with it?!

Here’s why…

First and foremost – it is the right thing to do for our patients. Joint Commission accreditation is well known as the benchmark for quality in patient care. And it ensures that we are meeting the highest standards of quality and safety, as well as actively seeking new ways to improve for our patients and community. Additionally, Joint Commission accreditation ensures:

• Quality – Keeps your health care providers on the cutting edge of high-quality standards in all aspects of patient care
• Expertise – Ensures you will be cared for by staff with a high level of expertise
• Safety – Keeps you safer through highly organized standards and procedures

As a Joint Commission accredited healthcare organization, Carson Tahoe Health is pleased to offer high quality patient-centered care. For more information on Joint Commission accreditation, go to https://www.qualitycheck.org/.