What You Need To Know
- Hackensack University is the first hospital in the nation to earn a Health Care Equity Certification from The Joint Commission.
- The certification indicates HMH's extensive efforts to address and improve healthcare equity across its network.
To become certified, The Joint Commission requires health systems to have formalized structure in place to improve health equity across their facilities and serve as community collaborates to address areas of need. Organizations seeking this designation must collect, analyze, and at on data points relating to patient care, patient communication, socioeconomic information, staff education, and policies on various topics including recruitment and retention.
Hackensack University underwent a rigorous onsite review to receive the certification. During the visit, a team of Joint Commission surveyors evaluated over 40 program-specific standards and a range of data points, including the following:
- Three quality and/or safety measures for priority clinical conditions by sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., cardiovascular outcomes, cesarean birth rates for nulliparous women with term, singleton baby in vertex position [NTSV], hospital-acquired conditions, pressure injury rates, etc.)
- Comparison of the race, ethnicity, and languages spoken by staff and leaders to the race, ethnicity, and languages spoken by the community
- Employee opinion survey/culture of safety survey results stratified by race, ethnicity, and language information
- Health Care Equity performance improvement plan
Hackensack Meridian Health invited members of its senior leadership team, administrative teams, and clinical care leaders to participate in the certification review. Hackensack University Medical Center holds 30 other Joint Commission certifications, which is the most of any hospital in the country. The Joint Commission is an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits more than 22,000 healthcare organizations and healthcare programs in the United States.