The Joint Commission updates its National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) annually to help health care
organizations address specific areas of concern regarding patient safety. Incorporating these goals into your policies and procedures is important for continuous improvement in patient care. For 2009, The Joint Commission has renumbered all of the requirements, added new requirements to three goals, and retired one goal.
 

New Numbering System

A new numbering system was designed to enable sorting electronically and to accommodate the addition of new requirements. Each requirement is now assigned a six-digit number that designates its place in the manual chapter.
          

New Requirements

To improve the accuracy of patient identification, one new requirement has been added to Goal 1:

• Implement a two-person verification process to eliminate transfusion errors related to patient misidentification.

To help prevent health care-associated infections, three new requirements have been added to Goal 7:

• Implement evidence-based practices to prevent health care-associated infections due to multiple drug-resistant organisms in acute care hospitals.
• Implement best practices or evidence-based guidelines to prevent central line-associated bloodstream infections.
• Implement best practices to prevent surgical-site infections.

To ensure patients’ medications are accurately and completely reconciled across the continuum of care, two new requirements have been added to Goal 8:

• When a patient leaves an organization’s care, provide a complete and reconciled list of the patient’s medications directly to the patient and the patient’s family (if necessary), and explain the list to the patient and/or the family.
• In settings where medications are used minimally or prescribed for a short duration, perform modified medication reconciliation processes. 

Retired Goal

Goal 12, which required the implementation of applicable NPSGs and associated requirements by components and practitioner sites, has been retired. The retired status indicates that the requirement was formally integrated into the official accreditation standards of The Joint Commission.
 
For a complete list of the 2009 NPSGs and requirements, visit Facts About Patient Safety at the Joint Commission's web site. For more information, call the Standards Interpretation Group at 1-630-792-5900. You can also submit questions online.