January 4, 2023 | less than a minute read

Joint Commission Eliminates 56 Acute Care Hospital Accreditation Standards

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Michael Callahan

Senior Counsel

Get in touch

Michael Callahan

Senior Counsel

Effective February 19, 2023, The Joint Commission is eliminating 56 acute care hospital accreditations and revising four others. The explanation for these changes is set forth in quote provided below. Included among the categories of "retired" standards, which focus exclusively on Elements of Performance (EPs) are:

- Environment of Care

- Human Resources

- Leadership

- Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services

- Performance Improvement

- Waived Testing

The eliminated standards, which were approved by CMS, will not likely result in any reduction of overall hospital accreditation obligations and compliance expectations. That said, hospitals should review the changes because it may result in modifying and streamlining existing policies and procedures so as to avoid redundant and sometimes confusing requirements.

Staff across multiple divisions reviewed each of the selected EPs and reported the possible reasons why scoring was low, including organizations are compliant with the requirement because they have adopted it as a standardized practice, the EP is redundant to another requirement, and the EP is difficult to assess compliance objectively and consistently during surveys. As a result of this review, 56 hospital EPs were identified for deletion, and 4 EPs needed minor revisions to make them more effective. Many of these EPs were also accreditation requirements for other programs, and these were deleted or revised from those programs as well.