This white paper emanates from The Joint Commission’s Public Policy Initiative. Launched in 2001, this initiative seeks to address broad issues relating to the provision of safe, high-quality health care and, indeed, the health of the American people. These are issues that demand the attention and engagement of multiple publics if successful resolution is to be
achieved. For each of the identified public policy issues that it has addressed, The Joint Commission already has relevant state-of-the-art standards in place. However, simple application of these standards, and other one-dimensional
efforts, will leave this country far short of its health care goals and objectives. Thus, this paper does not describe new Joint Commission requirements
for health care organizations, nor even suggest that new requirements
will be forthcoming in the future.