Last week, the Joint Commission International (JCI) announced a new set of standards for international academic medical centers accredited by the JCI.
The new standards, which are divided into two chapters: Medical Professional Education (MPE) and Human Subject Research Programs (HRP), were published on July 1, 2012 and will be effective for eligible organizations on Jan. 1, 2013.
JCI was established in 1997 as a division of Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR), a wholly controlled, not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission, which accredits U.S. academic medical centers.
“Each chapter of the new standards, one on medical education and the other on critical research tie together quality monitoring of patient care with education and research. Traditionally, during medical education for students, there isn’t a strong quality monitoring and reporting component. The students are not always taught about quality reporting and medication mistakes,” said Paul vanOstenberg, vice president of international accreditation, standards and measurement for JCI. “These standards tie together the supervision of students and research. It’s important to understand quality reporting and mistakes that are made in order to make improvements in the future.”
To recognize that an academic medical center hospital has been surveyed under these standards, the Certificate of Accreditation will note that the hospital is accredited under the Joint Commission International Standards for Academic Medical Center Hospitals. These hospitals will also be recognized separately on the JCI website listing of all accredited organizations.
These new standards will be integrated into the evaluation process for the accreditation of hospitals. For example, when the on-site evaluators are reviewing patient care in a clinical unit, they will also evaluate the contribution of medical trainees to care processes in that unit, and the integration of clinical research protocols into the care provided on the unit and the quality monitoring processes.
vanOstenberg also mentioned the financial implications of including quality reporting and monitoring with education.
“The implication from all of this is really the liability insurance and how there is a financial impact every time there is are unrecognized errors,” he said. “The hospitals that do a really good job with learning from events and mistakes cut costs when it comes to liability. There is a financial impact to learning from mistakes and reporting mistakes.”
Not every hospital with students or conducting research is considered an academic medical center hospital under these new standards, according to vanOstenberg. JCI will evaluate hospitals under the academic medical center hospitals requirements when the hospital:
• is organizationally or administratively integrated with a medical school;
• is the principal site for the education of both medical students and medical specialty residents from the medical school noted in the previous criterion; and;
• conducts academic and/or commercial human subject research involving patients of the hospital.