The Joint Commission
National Patient Safety Goals – 2007

 The purpose of the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals is to promote specific improvements in patient safety. The goals highlight problematic areas in health care and describe evidence and expert-based consensus to solutions to these problems.  This is important to patients as hospitals who regularly monitor and track their performance of these goals deliver safer and higher quality health care. Roswell Park maintains high compliance (90%-100%) in all of these National Patient Safety Goals.

Goal	National Patient Safety Goals - 2007
Goal 1A	Use at least two patient identifiers (neither to be the patient's room number) whenever administering medications or blood products; taking blood samples and other specimens for clinical testing, or providing any other treatments or procedures.
Goal 2A	For verbal or telephone orders or for telephonic reporting of critical test results, verify the complete order or test result by having the person receiving the order or test result "read-back" the complete order or test result.
Goal 2B	Standardize a list of abbreviations, acronyms and symbols that are not to be used throughout the organization.
Goal 2C	Measure, assess and, if appropriate, take action to improve the timeliness of reporting, and the timeliness of receipt by the responsible licensed caregiver, of critical test results and values.
Goal 2E	Implement a standardized approach to "hand off" communications, including an opportunity to ask and respond to questions.
Goal 3B	Standardize and limit the number of drug concentrations available in the organization.
Goal 3C	Identify and, at a minimum, annually review a list of look-alike/sound-alike drugs used in the organization, and take action to prevent errors involving the interchange of these drugs.
Goal 3D	Label all medications, medication containers (e.g., syringes, medicine cups, basins), or other solutions on and off the sterile field in perioperative and other procedural settings.
Goal 7A	Comply with current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hand hygiene guidelines.
Goal 7B	Manage as sentinel events all identified cases of unanticipated death or major permanent loss of function associated with a health care-associated infection.
Goal 8A	Implement a process for obtaining and documenting a complete list of the patient’s current medications upon the patient’s admission to the organization and with the involvement of the patient. This process includes a comparison of the medications the organization provides to those on the list.
Goal 8B	A complete list of the patient's medications is communicated to the next provider of service when it refers or transfers a patient to another setting, service, practitioner or level of care within or outside the organization.
Goal 9B	Implement a fall reduction program and evaluate the effectiveness of the program.
Goal 13A	Define and communicate the means for patients and their families to report concerns about safety and encourage them to do so.
Goal 15	The organization identifies safety risks inherent to its patient population.
UP 1A	Prior to the start of any invasive procedure, conduct a final verification process to confirm the correct patient, procedure, site, and availability and review of appropriate documents.
UP 1B	Implement a process to mark the surgical site and involve the patient in the marking process.
UP 1C	Conduct a “time out” immediately before starting the procedure. This must be conducted in the location where procedure is to be done, must involve entire operative team, must be documented and processes in place for reconciling differences.