National Patient Safety Goals

The purpose of The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals is to promote specific improvements in patient safety. The goals highlight areas in healthcare that can have problems and describe evidence and expert based ways to solve these problems.

Because safe, high quality healthcare can only be provided in a system that has been designed to support such care, the National Patient Safety Goals focus on system-wide solutions wherever possible. Institutions are surveyed by the Joint Commission for compliance with these goals. The information below will be updated after Cedars-Sinai has its next survey by The Joint Commission. A check mark shows that the organization has met the requirements of that National Patient Safety Goal.

Goal: Identify Patients Correctly

Use at least two ways to identify a patient (neither to be the patient's room number) whenever medications or blood products are given; blood samples or other specimens are taken for clinical testing; or any treatments or procedures are done.

Goal: Improve Effective Communication

To make sure that orders or critical test results provided by telephone are fully understood, the staff receiving the orders or results must "read-back" the complete order or test result to verify that their understanding is correct.
Measure, assess and, when needed, take action to improve how quickly critical test results and values are given to and received by the responsible, licensed caregiver. All critical test results must be reported as soon as possible to the responsible caregiver of the patient.
Standardize a list of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols that are not to be used throughout the organization. Certain abbreviations have been designated as unacceptable or prohibited due to dangers of misreading care intentions or handwritten communication.
Put in place a standardized approach to assure that when a new caregiver or staff member becomes responsible for a patient's care he or she has a chance to ask questions, receive all important information about a patient's condition and formally review the patient's status with the prior caregiver

Goal: Improve the Safety of Using Medications

Standardize and limit the number of drug concentrations available in the organization.
Identify and, at a minimum, annually review a list of look-alike/sound-alike drugs used in the organization. Take action to prevent the chance of these drugs being mixed up or confused.
Label all medications, medication containers (e.g., syringes, medicine cups or basins), or other solutions in perioperative and other procedural settings. This is to ensure that only correct medications intended for the care and treatment of a particular patient are given.

Goal: Reduce the Risk of Healthcare-Associated Infections

Comply with current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hand hygiene guidelines. This means healthcare staff must wash or disinfect their hands after every encounter with a patient to prevent the spread of germs.
Manage as sentinel events all cases of unanticipated death or major permanent loss of function linked to a health care-associated infection. A sentinel event is an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, which includes loss of limb or function. Such events are called sentinel because they signal the need for immediate investigation and response. This goal is to ensure that organizations treat unexpected death and serious injury as a result of a hospital-acquired infection as an event to be investigated immediately and intensively to avoid its happening again in the future.

Goal: Accurately and Completely Reconcile Medications Across the Continuum of Care

Put in place a process to get and record a complete list of the patient's current medications when he or she is admitted to the medical center. The patient must be involved in the preparation of this list. The process must also include a comparison of the medications the medical center provides to those on the patient's list.
A complete list of the patient's medications is communicated to the next provider of service when a patient is referred or transferred to another setting, service, practitioner or level of care within or outside the organization. These two goals are to ensure continuity of care between caregivers and institutions.

Goal: Reduce the Risk of Patient Harm Resulting from Falls

Put in place a fall reduction program and evaluate its effectiveness. People who are ill, on many different medications or undergoing surgery and recovering from anesthesia are often unaware of their physical capabilities. When they try to move around their rooms on their own, they can easily fall unless precautions are taken. Such falls can be dangerous to patients during treatment and recovery. This goal requires hospitals to implement a program to avoid the likelihood of patient falls.