Joint Commission standards now available online

The Joint Commission's revised standards, rationales and elements of performance for 2009 can now be viewed online to help health care organizations become familiar with new language, ordering and numbering

The changes are part of the Standards Improvement Initiative (SII), launched in 2006 as part of the commission's ongoing quality improvement efforts. SII focuses on clarifying standards language, ensuring that standards are program-specific, deleting redundant and nonessential standards and consolidating similar standards.

While no new requirements were added, chapter overviews, standards, introductions, rationales and elements of performance were designed for ease of use. In the standards reorganization, requirements were split or consolidated. Standards have been renumbered and reordered to allow electronic sorting and to allow the addition of new requirements in the future. To view the standards go to http://www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/NewsReleases/nr_sii_gen.htm