In the News: Infection Control and Patient Safety

Standards Improvement Initiative

The recent Home Care Bulletin (Issue #1, 2008) released by the Joint Commission provided a summary of the key findings relative to revisions in the following Standards Chapters:

• Infection Prevention and Control
• Management of Information
• Improving Organization Performance

These revisions are part of the Joint Commission’s ongoing Standards Improvement Initiative. As part of this initiative standard applicability is being examined for relevancy to specific services provided, as well as business practices and scope of care. It is anticipated that this would eliminate requiring compliance with standards that are not germane to the organization’s services and care offerings.

Infection Control Standards

Because there are differences in perception and understanding regarding the aspects of infection control that are relevant to home care, a special task force, focused on Infection Control in the Home Care Setting was established. One task that this task force was assigned was to review the existing infection control literature specific to home care.

While there was limited literature available that focused solely on home care, other applicable literature available for other health care provider settings was also reviewed. Elements examined included home care providers’ surveillance and outbreak investigation significance and usefulness. Specific areas of relevancy for outcome based surveillance for home care providers were determined to be for patients with wounds, tubes and lines. However process based surveillance was determined to continue to be relevant for patients in all provider type settings.

These findings will allow home care providers to adapt their infection control surveillance indicators accordingly. Another area of infection control practice discussion was related to the extent of the provider’s responsibility when there is no provider representative present in the home setting. While providers are expected to establish and implement infection prevention and control practices, the adherence to these expectations by family and patient is beyond the scope of responsibility for the provider. Infection prevention and control education needs to be provided and documented and all staff must follow acceptable practice standards.

The Joint Commission’s Home Care Bulletin can be accessed at http://www.jointcommission.org, while more information on the standards improvement initiative is available at http://www.jointcommission.org/Standards/SII/.

National Patient Safety Goals 2009

The comment period for the 2009 National Patient Safety Goals continues through the end of February. Providers can take part in this field review, which includes not only newly proposed national patient safety goals, but also revisions to existing goals. It is important for providers to participate and comment, as results will directly impact care and service delivery. To access these proposed revisions go to http://www.jointcommission.org/Standards/FieldReviews/09_npsg_fr.htm. This location provides the link for the completion of the online survey and detailed information on national patient safety goals and their proposed revisions and additions.