Improving organizational performance: an introduction to the 1995 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations Standard.

The 1995 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations Standards represent a significant change in philosophy. Specific expectations for each discipline and department are no longer listed; instead, functions critical to patient care are described. With this change comes a new approach to the accreditation process; it is now focused on evaluation of the organization's performance of each of these functions. In addition, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations expects that improvement activities be undertaken to systematically measure and assess the level at which the organization carries out these functions. Quality assurance and quality assessment have been replaced by performance improvement. The specific 1995 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations requirement is that "the organization designs processes well and systematically measures, assesses, and improves its performance to improve patient health outcomes." This article present an overview of the new standard, Improving Organizational Performance, and discusses issues to consider in implementing the standard in relation to the care of patients with cancer.