Eight hospitals have achieved The Joint Commission's new health equity certification, which the accrediting organization rolled out in July.
Key components of the certification require hospitals to make "health care equity a strategic priority and are collaborating with patients, families, caregivers and external organizations to identify and address needs that help translate equitable health care into better health outcomes," Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of The Joint Commission Enterprise, said in a June 27 news release just days before the program launched.
"We have long-standing accreditation requirements about the collection of patient race, ethnicity, and preferred language information, and the new certification requirements are an extension of those expectations," Christina Cordero, PhD, a project director who oversees healthcare quality evaluation at The Joint Commission, told Becker's in July "Hospitals can build upon their existing processes to ensure that these patient-level data elements are self-reported, incorporate more granular ethnicity categories to better reflect their patient population."
The first eight hospitals to receive the health equity certification are:
- Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus, N.J.
- Elmhurst Hospital Center in New York City
- Hackensack Meridian Health(N.J.) University Medical Center
- Hackensack Meridian Healths Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune Township, N.J.
- Hackensack Meridian Health's Ocean University Medical Center in Brick, N.J.
- Hackensack Meridian Health's Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, N.J.
- NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City
- Stony Brook (N.Y.) University Hospital