The Wall Street Journal has done it again. For years the Journal has a been publishing a series of stories about abuses of the medical profession and their effects on healthcare delivery. The most recent story appeared a few months ago and it should be of concern to anyone who wants to know whether his or her hospital meets federal safety standards.
When Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, the law required that hospitals that wanted to receive federal money through the programs meet certain patient safety standards. The law permitted hospitals to either use state inspectors or hire private, federally approved accrediting organizations to certify that they meet the federal safety standards. Most hospitals chose the private agency option and the Joint Commission, which used to be called the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, currently certifies the compliance of most hospitals in the United States and gives them its Gold Seal of Approval. The Journal story shows that the Joint Commission is not doing its job in protecting the public from dangerous medical care.
Very few hospitals which apply for accreditation or renewal of its accreditation are denied. Despite dangerous problems, clear instances of malpractice and unnecessary patient deaths, almost no hospital loses its accreditation.
CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) checks to make sure the Joint Commision is doing its job. CMS sends its own inspectors to hospitals to see if the hospitals are meeting federal safety standards. The recent results have been shocking. In 2014, 350 hospitals were found to be in violation of Medicare safety standards but remained accredited by the Joint Commission. As far as the general public was concerned, these dangerous hospitals were still meeting the standards of the Joint Commission and entitled to prominently display its Gold Seal of Approval. It does not help that the results of Joint Commission inspections are confidential and not available to the public.
CMS checks to see how often private inspectors such as the Joint Commission miss important safety problems in their inspections. In 2014, the Joint Commission inspectors were found to miss dangerous safety problems in 42% of their inspections of non-psychiatric hospitals. In the case of psychiatric hospitals, the Joint Commission inspectors missed or ignored dangerous safety issues in an unbelievable 75% of their inspections.
Even in hospitals which meet federal standards, mistakes are made and patients are injured or die. The outcomes in hospitals that do not meet the federal standards are even worse. These results of these mistakes are not just statistics. They each represent someone’s father, mother, brother, sister or child.
I don’t know about you but I am suffering from outrage fatigue. Something needs to be done and I am becoming even more pessimistic that positive changes will be made. There is big money in running a hospital. Losing accreditation can cost a lot. Is it any wonder dangerous hospitals never lose their accreditations? Money talks and big money shouts. The public does not have a chance.
