Joint Commission revises post-survey processes

Effective immediately, The Joint Commission’s post-survey processes have been revised to speed up the resolution of requirements for improvement (RFI), according to the March issue of The Joint Commission Perspectives. The changes were made to the processes for rendering Accreditation with Follow-up Survey (AFS) and Preliminary Denial of Accreditation (PDA) decisions.

The AFS change delegated the authority to render decisions to Ana Pujols McKee, the accreditor’s chief medical officer, which should reduce the amount of time between a survey and the final accreditation decision. Organizations will receive the AFS decision within 10 business days of the survey and a follow-up survey within approximately four months of the decision notification.

The revisions to the PDA process require that corrective Evidence of Standards Compliance (ESC) are due to The Joint Commission within 45 days of the PDA notification. After the ESC is determined to be acceptable, a follow-up survey is conducted to confirm that the organization made the improvements identified in the ESC. If the follow-up survey finds that all RFIs have been resolved, The Joint Commission’s Accreditation Committee will receive a recommendation to revise the organization’s history to reflect a time-limited PDA decision. The organization’s status will also be upgraded to AFS. If the follow-up survey finds that the organization did not resolve all RFIs, the Accreditation Committee will receive a recommendation that the organization receive a PDA decision and continue toward Denial of Accreditation.