What you need to know about the Joint Commission's eating disorder standards

The Joint Commission's new standards for residential and outpatient eating disorder programs went into effect on July 1. The standards expand and add more specific guidelines on the care of eating disorder patients. It's important to note that these standards only appear in the behavioral health manual and will not apply directly to hospitals or psychiatric hospitals. A complicating factor is for hospitals that operate a residential or partial hospitalization eating disorder program and are subject to a tailored behavioral health survey.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), approximately 30 million Americans suffer from a serious eating disorder at some point in their lives, including bulimia, anorexia, and binge-eating. These conditions and their symptoms have major detrimental impact on patients' physical and mental health. A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed 50 years' worth of data and found that anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.

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