The Joint Commission has announced the 2008 National Patient Safety Goals and related Requirements for each of its accreditation programs and its Disease-Specific Care Certification Program. The Goals and Requirements, recently approved by the Joint Commission's Board of Commissioners, apply to the nearly 15,000 Joint Commission-accredited and certified healthcare organizations and programs.

Major changes in this sixth annual issuance of National Patient Safety Goals include a new Requirement to take specific actions to reduce the risks of patient harm associated with the use of anticoagulant therapy, and a new Goal and Requirement that address the recognition of, and response to unexpected deterioration in a patient's condition. The new anticoagulant therapy Requirement addresses a widely acknowledged patient safety problem and becomes a key element of the Goal: Improve the safety of using medications. It is applicable to hospitals, critical access hospitals, ambulatory care and office-based surgery settings, and home care and long term care organizations. The new Goal and Requirement respecting the deteriorating patient will ask hospitals and critical access hospitals to select a suitable method for enabling caregivers to directly request and obtain assistance from a specially-trained individual(s) if and when a patient's condition worsens. Each of the foregoing new Requirements has a one-year phase-in period that includes defined milestones. Full implementation is targeted for January 2009.

In addition, an existing Requirement to assure the timely reporting of critical test results has been extended to the long term care program. Further, for all programs, the Requirement that addresses hand hygiene also has been expanded to permit use of the World Health Organization (WHO) Hand Hygiene Guidelines as an alternative to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hand hygiene guidelines.

Finally, the Requirement to limit and standardize drug concentrations that is part of the Goal to improve the safety of using medications will be retired as a National Patient Safety Goal, but organization compliance will continue to be evaluated as part of the Medication Management standards.

"The 2008 National Patient Safety Goals seek to focus the efforts of healthcare organizations on the priority areas where the opportunities for improving patient safety are greatest," says Joint Commission president Dennis S. O'Leary, MD. "Consistently putting these Requirements into action will benefit millions of patients."

The development and annual updating of the National Patient Safety Goals and Requirements continue to be overseen by an expert panel that includes widely recognized patient safety experts, as well as nurses, physicians, pharmacists, risk managers and other professionals who have hands-on experience in addressing patient safety issues in a wide variety of health care settings. Each year, this Sentinel Event Advisory Group works with The Joint Commission to undertake a systematic review of the literature and available databases to identify candidate new Goals and Requirements. Following a solicitation of input from practitioners, provider organizations, purchasers, consumer groups, and other parties of interest, the Advisory Group determines the highest priority Goals and Requirements and makes its recommendations to The Joint Commission.

The full text of the 2008 Goals and Requirements is posted on The Joint Commission website, www.jointcommission.org. Compliance with the Requirements is a condition of continuing accreditation or certification for Joint Commission-accredited or certified organizations.