The recently opened Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety has announced the launch of its new Web site, http://www.jcipatientsafety.org. This site has been designed and is being implemented to serve as a major, central repository of resources and information related to all aspects of patient safety. Its content will be relevant for patients, employers, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, as well as for all types of healthcare organizations worldwide.
The site will ultimately provide a wide array of practical safety solutions that can be used to improve the safety and quality of patient care in a variety of healthcare environments, including, but not limited to, hospitals, outpatient clinics and physician offices, nursing homes, home care settings, behavioral health centers, and assisted living facilities. Healthcare organizations and healthcare professionals will be able to use the center's Web site, for example, to find information on the most frequent types of reported sentinel events and their root causes; find resources for understanding and meeting the National Patient Safety Goals; and read Sentinel Event Alert newsletter recommendations. Patients and their families, as well as employers, will be able to use the center's Web site to obtain quality-related performance information on healthcare organizations; become familiar with public education campaigns on patient safety such as Speak Up(TM); and become knowledgeable about public policy issues that impact patient safety.
The Web site will also become a focus of the center's efforts to create a worldwide collaborative network of patient safety leadership organizations. Further, online discussion groups will provide an interactive forum for international dialogue on critical patient safety issues and topics.
The new Web site is one of the first priority projects for the recently announced Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety. Jointly sponsored by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Joint Commission Resources, the center advocates for safety in healthcare by prompting the adoption of solutions that are based on sound scientific research, expert professional consensus opinion, and principles of multidisciplinary education.
The center is dedicated to identifying or creating, analyzing, and disseminating patient safety solutions to facilitate the creation of organizational cultures of safety that embrace the continuous attention to safety-focused, systems' improvement efforts across the spectrum of healthcare. The identification of patient care solutions will also focus on related opportunities to eliminate inefficiencies in the provision of patient care.
"Our goal is to provide a wide spectrum of important patient safety information that is readily accessible and highly relevant," says Peter B. Angood, MD, chief patient safety officer, Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety. "The wealth of information on this Website should be valuable to health care professionals and to health care organization leaders who are seeking to implement recognized safety, quality and efficiency principles in their respective settings. This site should also become a key resource for patients, their families and the general public to help them understand the roles they can play in improving patient safety."
The launching of the Joint Commission International Center for Patient Safety marks the 10-year anniversary of intensified efforts and commitment by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Joint Commission Resources to encourage safe patient care practices and to create blame-free cultures of patient safety across the full range of national and international environments.