Among the main mandates of the Joint Commission is to issue accreditation to medical institutions. This organization requires the institutions to demonstrate full compliance with its standards and guidelines before they are issued with the accreditation. While the standards and guidelines differ in their details, they all aim to challenge the institutions to take all necessary steps to safeguard patient health. Promoting safety and delivering quality care are among the metrics that are used to assess whether institutions have met the standards of the Joint Commission. An analysis of the 67-year old patient being treated at Nightingale Community Hospital reveals that this facility’s services and operations fall short of the Joint Commission expectations. In particular, the facility has failed to adopt proper documentation practices.
Outstanding Patient Care Issue
After reviewing the case of the patient, it became evident that Nightingale Community Hospital does not recognize the importance of complying with the Joint Commission requirements. While the facility has failed to satisfy numerous requirements, there appears to be a pattern of either refusing or neglecting to maintain accurate and reliable records. Among the requirements that the Joint Commission expects facilities applying for accreditation to meet is ensuring that all medical records are documented properly (“The Joint Commission”, 2009). It is unfortunate that Nightingale Community Hospital is not isolated in its failure to satisfy this requirement. In its report on compliance, the Joint Commission observed that documenting medical records is among the requirements that most facilities are unable to meet. As many as 60% of facilities failed to satisfy this requirement in 2012 (“5 Most Challenging”, 2013). In the following discussion, the numerous instances where Nightingale Community Hospital fails to document records are highlighted.
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As part of the accreditation process, the Joint Commission requires facilities to take part in a survey. The purpose of the survey is to establish if the facility has met the standards stipulated in the guidelines of the commission. The Nightingale Community Hospital has participated in the survey. The survey revealed that this facility has a history of failing to maintain proper documentation. It was observed that in 2 of 21 records on patients who had undergone surgery, the facility had failed to include details on the progress that the patients had made. These failures can also be seen in the treatment of the 67-year old patient. Requiring families to supply documentation is among these failures. The Joint Commission mandates hospitals to keep accurate records. Hospitals are not to delegate this obligation to patients or their families. The nurses attending to the patient also failed to update the nursing plan. Facilities need to recognize that the effective delivery of care hinges on proper documentation. When they maintain accurate records, facilities are able to monitor the progress that patients make and make changes that they find necessary. By failing to update the nursing plan documentation, Nightingale Community Hospital essentially demonstrated disregard for patient wellbeing and quality care. Overall, the documentation approaches that this hospital has adopted fall below the standards of the Joint Commission. In addition to complicating the quest for accreditation, these inadequate approaches also place the health of patients at grave risk.
Corrective Action Plan
The standards of the Joint Commission are rather stringent. Despite their best effort, many healthcare providers are unable to satisfy the standards fully. However, facilities need to be relentless in their pursuit for accreditation. If it is to secure the wellbeing of such patients as the 67-year old who developed a wound following an operation, Nightingale Community Hospital needs to address the shortcomings of its documentation system. The Joint Commission has issued guidelines which facilities can use to improve healthcare delivery. As regards documentation, the commission recommends that facilities should simplify the documentation process (“Simplifying Documentation”, n.d). One of the factors that hamper compliance with the commission’s requirements is the tendency by hospitals to develop internal policies with which they are unable to comply. To ensure that its nurses and other practitioners maintain accurate records, Nightingale Community Hospital needs to simply its policies. In addition to encouraging compliance, a simpler documentation policy also makes record keeping less cumbersome. As a result, nurses have more time to attend to the needs of patients.
In the discussion above, it has been suggested that Nightingale Community Hospital should make its documentation policy simpler. One of the specific changes that the hospital can adopt is minimizing the amount of information that nurses are required to collect. Currently, the facility expects its nurses to collect too much information. For example, the nurses need to document the nutritional and physical assessment. While this documentation is important, it could be that it needlessly consumes too much time. Nightingale Community Hospital should either stop collecting certain information or assign the documentation role to other practitioners. It is fair to argue that the nurses at this facility find documentation to be an exhausting, unnecessary and cumbersome task. By minimizing the amount of information that nurses collect, the facility will encourage the nurses to regard documentation as a vital process instead of a cumbersome obligation.
In conclusion, the primary objective of the Joint Commission is to promote the delivery of quality care which enhances patient outcomes. Towards the attainment of this objective, the commission incentives healthcare providers with accreditation. The Nightingale Community Hospital is among the facilities that are striving to be accredited. However, given the facility’s failures and grave violations, it is unlikely that it will receive accreditation. Failing to adopt documentation practices that are in line with the Joint Commission Standards is one of the issues that will deny the hospital accreditation. This facility needs to simplify its documentation process if it is to solve the issues that it faces.
References
5 Most Challenging Joint Commission Requirements for Hospitals. (2013). Retrieved June 16,
2018 from https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/5-most-challenging-joint-commission-requirements-for-hospitals.html
The Joint Commission 2009 requirements related to the provision of culturally competent
Patient-centered care critical access hospital (CAH). (2009). Retrieved June 16, 2018
From https://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/2009_CLASRelatedStandardsCAH.pdf
Simplifying documentation provides nurses more time at the bedside. (n.d). Retrieved June 16,
2018 from http://www.strategiesfornursemanagers.com/content/255427/602.cfm#
