Question

How do criteria sets or core measures contribute to the management of care in the United States healthcare system?

How do sentinel events point to important opportunities to improve safety in healthcare organizations?

Answer 1

Ans) The core measure processes are proven standards of care that reduce complications and lead to better patient outcomes. Patients and families can use core measure performance to objectively compare hospitals locally or nationally.

Reasons for reporting a sentinel event to The Joint Commission:
- Self-reporting a sentinel event is not required, and there is no difference in the expected response, time frames or review procedures, whether the organization voluntarily reports the event or The Joint Commission becomes aware of the event by some other means.

- However, there are several advantages to the organization that self-reports a sentinel event:

Reporting the event enables the addition of the “lessons learned” from the event to be added to The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Database, thereby contributing to the general knowledge about sentinel events and the reduction of risk for such events in other organizations.
- Early reporting provides an opportunity for consultation with Joint Commission staff during the development of the root cause analysis and action plan.
- The organization’s message to the public that it is doing everything possible to ensure that such an event will not happen again is strengthened by its acknowledged collaboration with the Joint Commission to understand how the event happened and what can be done to reduce the risk of such an event occurring in the future.