Behavioral Health Care: 2020 National Patient Safety Goals

Summary

Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating healthcare organisations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits more than 22,000 healthcare organisations and programmes in the United States.

The purpose of the National Patient Safety Goals is to improve patient safety. The goals focus on problems in health care safety and how to solve them. The goals are to:

• Identify individuals served correctly
• Use medicines safely
• Prevent infection
• Identify individuals served safety risks.

Content

2020 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) for specific programmes include chapters on:

• ambulatory healthcare 
• behavioural healthcare 
• critical access hospital 
• home care
• hospital 
• laboratory 
• nursing care centre
• office-based surgery.