Joint Commission-nurse:pt ratios, short staffing

Does anyone who has been involved recently in a Joint Commisssion review know how they look at staffing and scheduling? Our numbers are bad...high acuity, short staffed. Do they look back over several months to see what staffing has been like? Do they investigate why the number of nurses are low and if anything is being done to alleviate it both short-term and long-term? Are there any sanctions for hospitals who operate with chronically high nurse-pt ratio? Any insight would be appreciated.

[bobnurse]

Yup,

I just read today matter of fact in the february update from JCAHO that you have to have a policy in place regarding staffing, how you staff, and so forth.........It has to be implemented immediately. We are meeting soon about this.......

[sparkyRN]

Is there a site online that has this information?

[begalli]

Is this what you're looking for sparky?

http://www.jcaho.org/accredited+organizations/long+term+care/standards/draft+standards/staffingeffectivenessstandard0804.pdf

(it's a pdf from jcaho's website- you need adobe acrobat to read)

[sparkyRN]

Is this what you're looking for sparky?

http://www.jcaho.org/accredited+organizations/long+term+care/standards/draft+standards/staffingeffectivenessstandard0804.pdf

(it's a pdf from jcaho's website- you need adobe acrobat to read)

Thanks for the link!

Maybe it can give me some of the answers I am looking for.