The Joint Commission has named five behavioral patient safety goals for 2024.
Among them, the accrediting body is calling for behavioral health clinicians to:
- Use a combination of two methods to identify a patient before administering drugs or treatments to avoid errors.
- Increase medication safety by communicating with the patient about all medicines they take, record that information correctly and share with the care team as appropriate, and provide the patient with clear, written information on any new medications.
- Improve hand cleaning using CDC guidelines and also new methods to adhere to the practice for better infection control and prevention measures.
- Identify each patient's individual situation and risk of suicide, with an aim of preventing them from getting to that point.
- Re-focus efforts to properly serve patients across all backgrounds and improve health equity as it relates to behavioral care.