Hospitals bound to patient safety rules that aren’t all backed by evidence

Medical Xpress June 23, 2022
Northwestern University

If health care facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes don’t follow patient safety rules set by The Joint Commission (TJC)—the independent organization responsible for accrediting health care facilities—they may lose their accreditation, and consequently, lose patients and millions of dollars every year in funding.

But what if those rules aren’t supported by evidence?

A new Northwestern Medicine study found of the new rules issued during a one-year period by the TJC, many did not appear to be supported by published evidence. The study showed only six of 20 rules were directly supported by references cited by TJC, six were partly supported and eight were not supported at all.

This paper is among the first to show that TJC may...

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