Joint Commission Exercise

I changed my mind about pursuing radiology and am currently working toward admission to the Health Information Management Technology (HI13) Associate of Applied Science Degree program at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. This blog post is an assignment for HIMT 1100: Introduction to Health Information Technology. The assignment was to answer the following question:

View “The Joint Commission,” a video clip about the Joint Commission (TJC). Write a 1-page paper that describes how HIM is involved with the Accreditation process. Submit your work in the dropbox provided.

In 2016 the Joint Commission (TJC) changed its accreditation survey process to focus on risk assessment (Larson, 2019, 5:00). TJC includes several areas related to HIM in its most frequently cited risk points, including authentication, documentation accuracy, and governance (Larson, 2019, 10:00). HIM plays a big part in the accreditation process by focusing on risk and quality management, especially regarding authentication, documentation accuracy, and governance and utilizing data and data analysis for risk assessment and quality improvement.

HIM professionals have the important job of being record and data custodians. They oversee and audit documentation and cooperate with care providers and other staff to ensure documentation is complete, accurate, and authenticated (Hijort, 2011). HIM professionals conduct quantitative analyses to ensure each record is complete and properly authenticated. With qualitative analyses and collaboration with care providers, they ensure the records are good quality and accurately reflect the provided patient care (Sayles, 2020, pp. 76-77).

HIM professionals must follow all governance, including bylaws, policies, standards, and regulations set by the healthcare organization, local and federal government, and the accrediting body regarding collecting data and documentation. HIM should also assist in developing such governance within the healthcare organization. In addition to governance, HIM can utilize education and tools provided by TJC. Some of these resources are public and can assist in seeking accreditation, maintaining compliance, and setting standards (Larson, 2019, 15:15). HIM can improve fulfilling their duties, reduce the probability of risk, increase the quality of care, ensure the organization stays safe and legal, and ensure compliance with TJC by using TJC resources and setting and following standards, policies, guidelines, and other governance.

Documentation and data collected are not only directly used for patient care but also by the healthcare organization for risk assessment and quality management. HIM duties are vital to finding risk and quality improvement points. HIM can provide collected data, including data regarding errors, conditions, events, indicators, etc. Then, they can analyze and interpret the data to assist in decision making to improve operations, quality management, and safety (Hijort, 2011). TJC also uses such data on a larger scale to improve healthcare overall. It takes pride in its advances in analytics to find risk points so it can share them with individual healthcare organizations and use them for its survey process for accreditation (Larson, 2019, 10:43, 37:40).

References

Hijort, B. (2011, Aug). HIM Functions in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety. AHIMA. https://library.ahima.org/doc?oid=104841#.X2Z09D-SmM8

Larson, C. (2019, Sept. 24). The Joint Commission. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCogOPut4yQ

Sayles, N. B., & Gordon, L. L. (Eds.). (2020). Health Information Management Technology: An Applied Approach. (6th ed.). Chicago, IL: The AHIMA Press

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