On January 1, the Joint Commission mandated that Joint Commission Accredited organizations, or those that are in the process of accreditation, must employ specific measurement-based care tools in order to retain or obtain accreditation. These new standards have important implications for healthcare providers, and organizations must be proactive in working to maintain compliance.
Why is The Joint Commission mandating measurement-based care?
The aim of the Joint Commission is to ensure that its accredited members meet certain criteria for their standard of care, and they believe that requiring their members to adopt standardized and objective measurements of evaluation will improve patient outcomes. Under the new system, providers, patients, and payers will more easily be able to see the value offered by the care provider. Care providers will be able to manage and monitor individual treatment plans more effectively and efficiently, and the Joint Commission will be able to refer to standardized metrics as they continue to monitor the excellence of care provided.
How will these changes affect care providers?
The Joint Commission has resources available to assist in the transition for an organization, but the onus of compliance will be on the care providers themselves. There are several steps that the providers must take to ensure that they are both in compliance of the new regulations set by the Joint Commission, and prepared to get the most value possible out of measurement-based care for their patients.
As a healthcare provider, your first step is to choose a tool or tools, that meets the criteria outlined by the Joint Commission. The tool should meet the needs of the individuals that you serve. There are currently 51 measures that the Joint Commission has listed on their website.
Following the decision, you will then move onto implementation, where it is crucial to get buy-in from clinicians and therapists through proper training that explains that the facility’s policy of utilizing a measurement tool within the treatment program. The final step of the process is an ongoing one: learning how to analyze the scoring and employ the results to manage and monitor an individual’s treatment plan for measurable outcomes.
How your organization can prepare for a move to a measurement-based care
The staff of your treatment center must do its due diligence to select a measurement tool that works for you and your patients, and meets the requirements set forth by the Joint Commission. At AZZLY®, we offer a full-service Electronic Health Record solution designed to help you elevate patient outcomes, and maintain your Joint Commission accreditation. Our system provides readable and customizable reports across all touchpoints of the patient journey, office management tools, adaptive record keeping, revenue management reports, and much more. To find out more about how the comprehensive AZZLY EHR solution can help you excel in the transition to measurement-based care, request a consultation with one of our representatives today.
