The Joint Fee this week introduced its new Telehealth Accreditation Program for eligible hospitals, ambulatory and behavioral healthcare organizations.
This system, with an efficient date of July 1, is designed to supply up to date and extra streamlined requirements to assist organizations providing telehealth providers put constructions and processes in place to assist ship safer and better high quality digital care
WHY IT MATTERS
The brand new Telehealth Accreditation Program was developed, the fee says, particularly for healthcare organizations that completely present care, remedy and providers by way of telehealth.
The brand new program’s necessities are just like different Joint Fee accreditations, equivalent to necessities for info administration, affected person identification, remedy administration and credentialing and privileging.
However there are necessities particular to the brand new accreditation program, equivalent to streamlined emergency administration necessities to deal with offering care and scientific assist remotely reasonably than in a bodily constructing.
Moreover, there are new requirements – which can be filtered primarily based on the modality or service offered – for supplier and affected person schooling about using telehealth platforms and units – in addition to different new requirements targeted on digital care tools, units and connectivity.
Hospitals and well being methods with written agreements in place to offer care, remedy and providers by way of telehealth to a different group’s sufferers have the choice to use for the brand new accreditation, in response to The Joint Fee, which can even exchange current telehealth and know-how accreditations in its Ambulatory Well being Care and Behavioral Well being Care and Human Companies packages.
THE LARGER TREND
The impartial, nonprofit Joint Fee is the nation’s oldest (based in 1951) and largest standards-setting and accrediting physique in healthcare, accrediting and certifying greater than 22,000 healthcare organizations and packages throughout america.
In latest many years, considered one of its massive focuses has been on well being info know-how, equivalent to EHR security options, handoff alerts, affected person schooling, scientific high quality metrics, well being fairness and extra.
ON THE RECORD
“Using telehealth in america elevated 154% throughout early levels of the COVID-19 pandemic and stabilized at ranges 38 occasions greater than ranges in 2019,” mentioned Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, president and chief government officer of The Joint Fee in an announcement.
“As telehealth continues to evolve, it was crucial to create a brand new accreditation program to offer a framework to assist the integrity of affected person security whatever the care setting,” he added. “Our new Telehealth Accreditation Program helps organizations standardize care and scale back threat,” he added, “so that every one sufferers, together with these acquiring providers remotely, obtain the most secure, highest-quality care with outcomes in keeping with conventional settings.”
Mike Miliard is government editor of Healthcare IT Information
E-mail the author: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT Information is a HIMSS publication.
