My skepticism is high. The new Joint Commission’s Center for Transforming Healthcare is a noble effort, but few organizations throughout history have been able to radically alter the way they do business (success story: IBM). The Joint Commission is trying to become an organization that “helps” hospitals but is likely to carry an aura of punitiveness well into the future.
Further their hand-hygiene launch project is off to a bad start, from The New York Times:
Although still in its early stages, the hand hygiene project has already made an impact in the eight collaborating hospital systems. Average hand hygiene compliance rates have increased from less than 50 percent at baseline to 74 percent. “The goal in the future,” Dr. Chassin said, “is to be consistently above 90 percent.”
Improvement, yes. The failure comes with an appropriate goal at onset. Ninety percent? That goal should be 100 percent. Period. Period, period.
