International "Joint Commission"s?

[Riseupandnurse]

My question is: In a country with universal government sponsored health care, is there an independent "quality control" organization like the Joint Commission on Healthcare Accreditation that is in the United States? With so much talk about universal healthcare from our US presidential candidates, I am wondering if we got it, would that be the beginning of the end of JCAHO? A very, very good consequence IMHO. :heartbeat

[suzanne4, RN]

There are actually JCAHO approved hospitals that can be found overseas in Thailand, Philippines, as well as other countries.

There is no universal "Joint Commission" as you call it for health care, each country can set their own rules. And even in the above listed countries, the facilities still have to meet the requirements of that particular country as well, since they are operating under their laws.

Approval of health care or the providing of health care has nothing to do with the requirements of JCAHO as far as issuing credentials to a hospital facility or even nursing agency. Those rules are never going to change, other than getting stricter.

[Riseupandnurse]

Thank you, Suzanne; I appreciate it. I know that each country (and in the US each state) has their own requirements, and that even in the US, JCAHO commendation is voluntary for each institution, but some of us have been speculating that if a country had universal health care, the competition between hospitals might be less and there might be no "need" for a quality-ensuring (so to speak) institution like JCAHO. Many nurses believe that some of the regulations JCAHO comes up with actually make delivery of quality health care harder without necessarily making things better for the patient (and definitely not the nurse). Thank you for helping.