Beginning in July 2023, The Joint Commission (TJC) will elevate “health equity” as a National Patient Safety Goal to recognize and demonstrate more significant efforts in achieving health equity. The goal will be to address healthcare disparities as a quality and safety priority.
As part of its ongoing commitment to providing high-quality health care to all communities it serves, EHS, through its Quality Department led by its Director Rodrigo Blasco, will take the necessary steps to align EHS’s performance with these standards.
Health Equity falls into The Joint Commission’s standard leadership category, as it requires commitment and sustained efforts from all levels of leadership within an organization, including the C-suite and the board of directors. With the current provision, Healthy Equity will advance as a Patient Safety Goal on par with other National Patient Safety Goals, such as medication safety and surgical error prevention.
New health equity requirements will include identifying an individual to lead activities to improve healthcare equity, developing an action plan to improve healthcare equity, assessing the patient’s health-related social needs, analyzing quality and safety data to identify disparities, informing critical stakeholders about progress to improve healthcare equity, among others.
We’re excited about this new challenge and confident we will meet the new requirements and standards for providing equitable care, treatment, and services.