The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) just released its proposed new standard to address Emergency Department (ED) Overcrowding. The JCAHO is actively soliciting public review and comment for this new standard. The deadline for public input is June 2, 2003.

"The standard is part of JCAHO's ongoing effort to seek solutions to this growing crisis, which puts patients at high risk of experiencing treatment delays or inadequate care." 

The draft standard would appear in the Leadership chapter of the 2004 Hospital Accreditation Manual. It states:

"LD.3.4  The leaders develop and implement plans to identify and mitigate situations that result in Emergency Department overcrowding."

The standard requires hospital leadership to address:

• patient movement through the hospital regardless of patient volume

• patient care in temporary (non-Emergency Room) bed locations

• coordination of community resources (pre-hospital, long-term care, etc.)

• inclusion of emergency department overcrowding in performance improvement activities

• use of performance indicators to predict and monitor capacity of hospital services and areas that receive emergency department patients

Link to our JCAHO Section