Opinion
ACS: Our standards program was the prototype for the Joint Commission
LETTER — Posted Jan. 22, 2007
Regarding "Doctors demand more input on hospital standards" (Article, Dec. 4, 2006): As executive director of the American College of Surgeons, I feel obligated to point out a significant oversight in the sidebar accompanying this article.
The sidebar, "A JCAHO primer," indicates that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations was formed in 1951 as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals and lists as founding members the AMA, Canadian Medical Assn., American College of Physicians, and American Hospital Assn.
Actually, the prototype for JCAHO began in 1918, when the American College of Surgeons launched the Hospital Standardization Program. The goal of the program's founders was to improve surgical care by setting forth health and safety criteria for institutions where operations took place. The college included on-site inspections of hospitals in order to ensure that they were complying with the standards that were outlined in the document "Minimum Standards for Hospitals." By 1951, the job of maintaining this approvals program had grown considerably, so the college sought the assistance of the organizations mentioned above in establishing a separate commission to carry out these activities.
Therefore, the sidebar to the article should have included mention of the American College of Surgeons as a founding member of the JCAHO. Over the years, it always has been a sponsoring organization and today is a corporate member with three seats on JCAHO's board.
Thomas R. Russell, MD, executive director, American College of Surgeons, Chicago
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/01/22/edlt0122.htm.
