Joint Commission Focuses Surveys to Assess Safety Culture

Healthcare is catching up to other industries that have strong continuous improvement programs like mining, gas and oil. Joint Commission is leading that charge by implementing survey process improvements this month for how it assesses the safety culture in hospitals and critical access hospitals.  These improvements will be implemented for all other programs by October of this year. See this article for more details: (Read article.) Continuous Quality Improvement has become a major focus for payers.

In addition, the value-based payment model is replacing the fee for service payment model faster than anticipated. Healthcare organizations must find a comprehensive continuous quality improvement process for patient safety and to strengthen clinical and financial outcomes. Healthcare organizations must protect their revenue by limiting the financial impacts of poor clinical outcomes through a strong continuous quality improvement program. Survival is at stake. Medicare sequestration and payment penalties can easily erase already slim margins.

TapRooT® is that comprehensive continuous quality improvement process that Joint Commission or State Survey teams love to see as part of your QAPI program. TapRoot® trains safety, compliance and quality teams on complete investigation/auditing techniques, finding why incidents occur and identifying the root cause of those mistakes, errors or failures, identifying and implementing corrective actions and ensuring they are effective. TapRooT® has remarkable software that guides teams through the process and helps create impressive reports for management or survey teams.

If you would like to learn more to decide if TapRooT® is the right continuous quality improvement process for your organization, you can contact me at marcus.miller@taproot.com.