For its part, the American Hospital Association said it supports providing the public “useful information” about hospital quality, but has doubts that detailed inspection reports fit that description.
“It’s important that the information shared with consumers has a clear purpose, is transparent and is readily understood by folks from all walks of life, not just those with deep expertise in health care,” says Nancy Foster, AHA’s vice president of quality and patient safety, in a statement. “We are concerned that sharing a detailed report may not be the most useful or effective strategy for informing the public.”
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Foster says it might be more useful to provide a one- or two-page “accurate summary” of inspection findings, with “key takeaways” and why they are important. “This summary could also draw from the plan of correction the hospital creates and summarize how the hospital plans to address the findings,” Foster says.
For years, accreditors have been accused of putting the interests of the facilities that pay them ahead of patient safety. In 2002, the
Chicago Tribune reported how the Joint Commission gave its seal of approval to “medical centers riddled by life-threatening problems and underreporting of patient deaths due to infections and hospital errors.”
Last week,
BuzzFeed News reported how an Oklahoma psychiatric hospital was named a "Top Performer in Key Quality Measures" by the Joint Commission even though police records, state inspection reports and lawsuit records showed that it “is a profoundly troubled facility where frequent violence endangers patients and staff alike, where children as young as 5 are separated from their parents and held in dangerous situations, and where wards lack adequate staffing and staff lack adequate training.”
In a response to BuzzFeed, the company that runs the hospital, Universal Health Services, said it “is proud of the care it provides patients at Shadow Mountain Behavioral Health.”
On its website, the Joint Commission allows users to check the accreditation status of hospitals but provides scant information of what went wrong, even when hospitals are described as receiving a “preliminary denial of accreditation.” For one hospital, the explanation is: “Existence at time of survey of a condition, which in the Joint Commission's view, poses a threat to patients or other individuals served.” The threat itself is not disclosed.
