Who died and made Joint Commission "God"

I am not saying that I work in the world's greatest hospital. But I've been a nurse for 38 years and it's the best one I've ever worked in. Have you ever worked in one that didn't sometimes make you crazy????

I live in a not so densely populated area of the country. Our chachement area covers three states. If all those areas are surveyed, it is clear that they are significantly under-bedded. Joint Commission has been on our case for several years. They found problems they wanted fixed. The hospital fixed them, but not in a way that JC apparently wanted. It's been like playing a game where every time you get the ball, they move the goal line.

We were informed last week that statistically, a hospital that has run the string out as far as we have does not pass. I've been in on the Quality efforts that have been made, and the extensive staff training that has gone on. Our hospital exceeds standards in so many ways it's rediculous.

But here's the bottom line. Joint Commission is crazy enough to essentially close a hospital that provides over 75% of the operating rooms for this huge area. The only trauma ER. We do the heart caths and have the interventional radiology. We bring the technology that keeps people alive, while the other hospitals are small and colloquial, though also very good. AND we're going into a flu season where we KNOW the area hospitals have a serious shortage of ventilators. (There have been meetings among the hospitals to develop action plans for the conventional and H1N1 flu.)

They don't care if my neighbor's kid gets hit by a car and there isn't any place to take her. The next gaggle of surveyors that probably live in other places like Nebraska or Missouri or whatever. A surveyor that lives in Atlanta doesn't care if my mother in law gets the flu and there are no ICU beds to support her when she gets pneumonia.

This is nuts! If the place was a snake pit... I'd be the first one to say it should be shut down. But in our state, we KNOW there have been seriously deficient places that were fiscally poorly run and in decline but they did NOT lose their accreditation.

Would they close us down and give no thought to the immediate public health crisis they create? I think they would.

They are unelected, unaccountable and so powerful I think they are dangerous.