Regulatory Agencies and Accrediting Bodies-JCAHO This assignment is designed to give you a greater understanding of regulatory agencies and accreditation bodies, including their functions, public reporting requirements, and the how they impact quality and safety. Select and evaluate a regulatory agency or accrediting body. Discuss the history of the agency or body. Explain the reason for its existence. Summarize the agency’s public reporting of quality indicators

Regulatory Agencies and Accrediting Bodies-JCAHO

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) was formed in 1951. This formation resulted from the amalgamation of the American College of Physicians, the Canadian Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and the American College of Surgeons. Later in 1959, the Canadian Medical Association retracted from JCAHO. In 1965, the Medicare Act was passed. The Medicare Act led to JCAHO’s accreditation role. The facilities that the agency had accredited were perceived as compliant with most of the federal health standards. Therefore, these facilities could take part in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement. JCAHO set up an Accreditation Council that assessed Long-Term care facilities. Ambulatory care accreditation began soon after. In 1979, the American Dental Association joined JCAHO. In 1987, the accreditation body’s name changed from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare (JCAH) to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO) (Viswanathan & Salmon, 2000). The name change was warranted by the expansive accreditation services of the agency beyond hospitals.

Reason for its existence

JCAHO is renowned as America’s oldest and largest accrediting agency. It is independent and non-profit. JCAHO conducts accreditation for at least 20,000 healthcare programs and organizations. Its board comprises nurses, consumers, physicians, administrators, employers, labor representatives, ethicists, educators, health insurance directors, quality experts, and medical directors (The Joint Commission, 2021). The accreditation body is mandated to constantly improve the healthcare that the public receives by collaborating with key stakeholders. Evaluation of the services that the facilities and programs offer is critical in ensuring that safe, effective, and high-quality care is available. JCAHO conducts re-evaluations every three years and two years for all laboratories. These re-evaluations are important in ensuring that the healthcare providers adhere to the set standards. The accreditation body assesses patient care, organizational management, as well as outcomes. Once the organizations fulfill requirements, they receive accreditation with commendation, conditional accreditation, preliminary accreditation, provisional accreditation, and accreditation with recommendations. If the facilities do not satisfy the requirements, they do not receive accreditation (Viswanathan & Salmon, 2000).

The main standards include functions that are focused on patients, functions of the organization, and structures. The patient-focused functions assess the organization’s ethics, patient’s rights, patient assessment, patient care, care continuum, and education; organizational functions include leadership, human resource management, information management, prevention, infection control, surveillance, and improvement of organizational functions. The third standard, which is structures, touches on management, governance, medical staffing, as well as nursing (Viswanathan & Salmon, 2000). JCAHO offers the health players freedom to set their own measures of performance as well as quality assurance frameworks that are aligned with its standards

JCAHO’s public reporting of quality indicators

Besides evaluating hospitals and accrediting those that qualify, JCAHO is also committed to keeping the public informed about the performance of organizations that are already accredited. The Quality Check Website plays a key role in supporting this reporting. Consumers can access information about specific organizations that have already received accreditation. These quality reports highlight the health players’ compliance with JCAHO’s requirements. The reports also provide the date the accreditation was awarded, compliance with the National Patient Safety Goal, performance in relation to the National Quality Improvement Goals, and recognizes excellent performers. The provision of such information is important for the process of decision-making among patients who seek safe and high-quality care (The Joint Commission, 2021). This means that the accreditation organization is entrusted with the wellbeing of the public through the management of the players in the sector.

Agency operations

JCAHO is responsible for ensuring patient safety by monitoring the current legislation and advocating for improvements. Through collaborative efforts, JCAHO can eliminate expectations or standards that are unrealistic while reforming outdated rules. The agency also governs the programs that are designed to improve patient safety. The safety reports from patients, the public, the media, the government, and the patients’ families are used to ensure that c