The Joint Commission is the leading health care accrediting body in the world, evaluating and accrediting nearly 20,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. The Joint Commission accredits more than 11,000 of the nation's hospitals and home health agencies, and more than 8,000 other health care organizations, including ambulatory care, behavioral health care, clinical laboratories, health care networks and long term care organizations. The information gathered in the accreditation process is not only valuable to the health care organizations themselves, but to everyone else having a stake in the health care delivery system. Accredited hospitals, home care agencies, nursing homes, behavioral Health facilities, outpatient clinics and health plans will be expected to comply with the pain management standards.
Accreditation is a voluntary process.
In other words, each organization chooses to seek accreditation. The new standards explicitly acknowledge that pain is a co-existing condition with a number of diseases and injuries, and requires explicit attention. For example, a patient with breast cancer should effectively be treated not only for the actual illness but also for any associated pain. The new standards will be printed in gray highlights to indicate that these standards will not be scored in 2000. At mid-year 2000, the Joint Commission will assess the ability of organizations to comply with the standards.