National Patient Safety Goals

Below are the National Patient Goals for 2015 as stated by The Joint Commission, previously known as JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations).


1. Identify patients correctly: Use at least two ways to identify patients.

2. Use medicines safely: Before a procedure, label medicines that are not labeled. Take extra care with patients who take medicines to thin their blood. Record and pass along correct information about a patient’s medicines. Update home med lists

3. Use alarms safely: Make improvements to ensure that alarms on medical equipment are heard and responded to on time

4. Prevent infection: Use the hand cleaning guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization. Use proven guidelines to prevent infection of the blood from central lines. Use proven guidelines to prevent infection after surgery. Use proven guidelines to prevent infections of the urinary tract that are caused by catheters

5. Identify patient safety risks: Find out which patients are most likely to try to commit suicide.

6. Prevent mistakes in surgery: Make sure that the correct surgery is done on the correct patient and at the correct place on the patient’s body. Mark the correct place on the patient’s body where the surgery is to be done. Pause before the surgery to make sure that a mistake is not being made. TIME OUT