Joint Commission Makes Periodic Performance Review Continuously Available to Healthcare Organizations

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. Beginning this month, healthcare organizations will have continuous access to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' Periodic Performance Review (PPR) on the Joint Commission's secure extranet, "JAYCO." The PPR is an integral component of the Joint Commission's accreditation process that promotes continuous standards of compliance through ongoing, internal monitoring.

Prior to making the PPR continuously available, organizations had received access to the PPR tool 15 months after its last triennial survey and had three months to complete it.  Those timeframes for access have now been eliminated.

"Accredited organizations told the Joint Commission that continuous access would be beneficial in efforts to promote safe, high-quality care, so the change has been made to meet that need," says Linda Murphy-Knoll, vice president, accreditation service operations, Joint Commission.

The schedule for completing the PPR remains unchanged until January 2006, when organizations will be expected to update the PPR annually.  For 2005, the PPR process requires each accredited organization to conduct a mid-cycle self-assessment against applicable Joint Commission standards; develop a plan of action to address identified areas of non-compliance; and identify measures of success for validating resolution of the identified problem areas. Under the usual PPR process, organizations will be expected to share this information with the Joint Commission at the mid-cycle point. Joint Commission staff work with the organization to refine its plan of action to assure that its corrective efforts are on target.

To address concerns about the potential discoverability of PPR information, particularly where it is shared with the Joint Commission, the Joint Commission has established three options to the full PPR, for accredited-healthcare organizations:

Option One:  The organization performs the full self-assessment, develops the plan of action and Measures of Success (MOS), but does not submit PPR data to the Joint Commission. At the time of the complete on-site survey, the organization provides its MOS to the Joint Commission surveyor team for assessment.

Option Two:  The organization remains accountable for conducting a full self-assessment and developing plans of action and applicable MOS, but does not submit PPR data to the Joint Commission. The organization undergoes an on-site survey, which will be approximately one-third the length of a typical full on-site survey. The organization receives a report of the survey activities.