Developing a Code of Conduct Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Developing a Code of Conduct - Essay Example The Joint Commission has a mandate of ensuring that health care services provided by health care facilities are up to standards. In order for the commission to improve the quality of health care services provided to patients, it has to review the activities of health facilities to identify situations that may inhibit a health facility from providing quality medical services to patients. The Joint Commission carries out its review with reference to sentinel events and it has to ensure that it includes all required accreditation surveys as well as random unannounced surveys. The main purpose of a Sentinel Event Policy is to provide an avenue where events that occur in the organization, both in the private and public health care facilities, will be identified, reported, investigated and managed (Joint Commission Resources Inc., 2005). Health care facilities are required to work towards meeting the requirements set by Joint Commission. These requirements include: development of effective mechanisms through which sentinel events can be reported and analyzed especially events that involve patient falls, meeting patient-safety goals as well as meeting patient-safety standards. Some health care facilities, however, have not implemented most of the requirements in all areas of operation. This is seen to have huge impacts on improving communication and increasing leadership knowledge of a hospital. These hospitals are therefore not able to account for the safety of its patients. Health care facilities that do not meet the set standards or do not respond to sentinel alerts as required by the Joint Commission may face consequences such as loss of accreditation. This means that a lot of money from Medicaid programs as well as Medicare will be lost. Hospitals will lack financial resources and they will also lose their patie nts since no one would want to seek medical services from an institution that provides unsafe care to patients. A code of conduct policy is in