The Joint Commission: National Patient Safety Goals for Medicare Based

The Joint Commission: National Patient Safety Goals for Medicare Based Long Term Care The Joint Commission is a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the Healthcare system. They do this by regulating and evaluating health care organizations, helping them improve and give a more effective and safe care (The Joint Commission, 2012). The National Patient safety goals are ways in which the joint commission strives to improve the way health care is provided (The Joint Commission, 2012). Effective on January 1, 2012, the Joint commission came up with new ways to improve the Care of Medicare Based Long term Care facilities and provided Safety regulations to be followed. In order to better understand the impact that this regulations have in the healthcare, it is necessary to identify and describe the purpose of each regulation, and emphasize on the impact that falls in particular, can have among the geriatric patients. Safety Goals and Purpose †¢ Identifying patients correctly when providing Care: Nurses are supposed to have two resident Identifiers when trying to care for a patient for the first time and after that, one identifier is acceptable. Identifiers such as Room number or location are not acceptable. To ensure this is carried out correctly nurses must ask for two identifiers in situations such as specimen collection, when providing treatments or when collecting blood for clinical testing (containers must be labeled in front of the patient). The Purpose of this guideline is to ensure that the patients are been properly identified and that they are receiving the right treatments and medications (The Joint Commission, 2012). †¢ Using Medications Safely Reduce Harms associated with Anticoagulant Therapy: This goal e... ...m, and taking these basic precautions will take health care to the next level. References Jones, D., & Whitaker, T. (2011). Preventing falls in older people: assessment and interventions. Nursing Standard, 25(52), 50-55. Jr, K. R., & Barber, C. E. (2011, August 29). Preventing falls in the elderly. Retrieved from http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/consumer/10242.html Peel, N. M., Travers, C., Bell, R. R., & Smith, K. (2010). Evaluation of a health service delivery intervention to promote falls prevention in older people across the care continuum. Journal Of Evaluation In Clinical Practice, 16(6), 1254-1261. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2753.2009.01307.x The Joint Commission. (2012, January 01). National patient safety goals: Medicare based long term care. Retrieved from http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/NPSG_Chapter_Jan2012_LT2.pdf