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The sentinel event policy: a response by the Joint Commission
1Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, USA.
Insights
The Joint Commission is concerned about hospital incident analyses being discoverable. While precautions exist, federal legislation is deemed necessary for adequate protection of these sensitive reports.
Area of Science:
- Healthcare Law
- Patient Safety
- Accreditation
Background:
- The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Policy encourages reporting of serious patient safety events.
- There are concerns regarding the discoverability of internal hospital incident analyses.
- This Comment addresses the legal implications of these analyses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To respond to an earlier article concerning discoverability of incident analyses.
- To outline the Joint Commission's stance on protecting sensitive patient safety information.
- To advocate for federal legislative solutions.
Main Methods:
- This is a Comment, not a research study.
- It presents a legal and policy perspective from the General Counsel of the Joint Commission.
- It discusses existing concerns and proposed solutions.
Main Results:
- The Joint Commission acknowledges and shares concerns about the discoverability of incident analyses.
- The organization believes protective measures can reduce discoverability.
- Federal legislation is considered essential for robust protection.
Conclusions:
- The Joint Commission is actively engaged with the issue of discoverability.
- Current measures may not be sufficient to guarantee protection.
- Federal legislative action is recommended to ensure adequate safeguards for hospital incident analyses.
Abstract:
In this Comment, Harold Bressler, General Counsel of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations responds to an earlier article, and states that the Commission is fully aware of and concerned with the possible discoverability of hospital incident analyses related to the Commission's Sentinel Event Policy. The Commission believes that precautions can be taken to minimize the possibility that such materials will be found discoverable, but maintains its position that federal legislation is required to ensure the availability of adequate protections.