Joint Commission




	Home Page All Services New Patient Forms Patient Information About QOLHS Provider Staff News & Events Career Opportunities Joint Commission Mission Statement Year In Review Message from CEO Contact Us	Partnership between the Joint Commission and the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) In October, 1996, the federal BPHC of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) began an initiative to promote accreditation of BPHC-supported health centers and reduce duplication with its own monitoring. Under the BPHC Accreditation Initiative, and the Joint Commission’s current contract BPHC's statutory requirements described in their Program Expectations (formerly called the Primary Care Effectiveness Review or PCER) and the Joint Commission ambulatory care survey are combined into one unified process. A major benefit for health centers is that for the duration of the contract with the Joint Commission, BPHC pays ambulatory care-related on-site and annual accreditation fees for health centers both seeking initial and re-accreditation. In addition, BPHC also covers fees when a lab accreditation survey occurs in conjunction with the ambulatory care survey. The behavioral health annual and on-site fees, and as of September 2008 all on-site and annual laboratory fees. Also the program is designed to: Increase health centers' competitiveness in the marketplace; and Provide a structure for health centers to integrate ongoing quality improvement into their daily operations Increase patient safety and enhance health care quality The unified survey process encompasses both the BPHC statutory requirements and all applicable Joint Commission standards in the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Ambulatory Care (CAMAC). Once BPHC has approved a health center's Letter of Interest to participate in the Accreditation Initiative for the first time (centers being resurveyed are automatically approved), The Joint Commission works with the health center's staff to finalize an application for accreditation, confirm a survey date, identify and provide other assistance that may be helpful. Although the length of the survey depends on an organization's scope of services, number of and distance between sites, and number of patient visits, the most common length is two to three days. A clinician and administrator surveyor from The Joint Commission usually participate in each survey. (see the sample survey agendas for BPHC-supported health centers within the On-site Survey Process section). If the center is also eligible for a laboratory accreditation survey (for centers performing moderate or high complexity laboratory tests as determined by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988), a laboratory surveyor also joins the team, although not necessarily for the same number of days.