Joint Commission Fail: On the Record

The American Medical Money Machine ^ | June 18, 2015 | James R. Goldberg

[Rona Badger]

Our call to the JC Sentinel Event Hotline confirms our previous reporting about the ruse that is the Joint Commission International. “The standards are not the same. The standards are different. It’s a totally different manual.”

What’s so wrong is that the JCI cleverly set up a different set of standards than what JC hospitals are beholden to in America—a fact confirmed through our call. Read the full transcript!

What the JCI sells to foreign hospitals seems to be a valued accreditation. World citizens are led to believe these foreign hospitals operate under the same regulations and responsibilities as JC accredited hospitals do. But that’s a fraud and fiction with serious consequences regarding patient safety.

JCI accredited foreign health care institutions appear to operate under supervision of the American-based JC. In other words, it looks as though JCI hospitals are policed by the US-designated JC in concert with the Department of Health and Human Services to receive Medicare payments—just the same way that a hospital in New York or Chicago or anywhere in the US are required by law to operate and be accountable. This is clearly a wrong assumption.

One of the key happenings which US accredited hospitals are honor bound to report are called Sentinel Events. The JC—a public charity—is all over Sentinel Events, just try a search. They are supposed to inform health care workers and the public about these events through Alerts.

Such events are called “sentinel” because they signal the need for immediate investigation and response.

The JC has a Sentinel Event Hotline set up for this very special and important purpose. Is this charitable? We don’t think so since organizations which have not paid the JC do not get to report anything. Plus, reporting isn’t even required by US hospitals according to HHS!