The Joint Commission Announces Survey Process Enhancements for 2025

On January 8, The Joint Commission announced enhancements to its survey processes in 2025. The enhancements are based on feedback from The Joint Commission’s organizations and aim to modernize its tools, reduce burden, and provide more robust communications tools for use for stakeholders within its organization.

The enhancements, with program applicability, include:

A redesigned survey report with capability to share insights, including an executive summary. Applicable to all accredited, certified and verified healthcare organizations.

An improved SAFER Matrix that uses short descriptors to supplement standard and element of performance (EP) numbers. Applicable to all accredited organizations.

The new SAFER Peer Benchmarking tool shows how hospitals perform compared to peers. Applicable to accredited hospitals.

An optional new process that allows organizations to upload survey-related documents during any survey type via their Joint Commission Connect®; extranet site. Applicable to hospital, critical access hospital, and hospital tailored accreditation programs.

The for-cause survey process has been modified to help organizations better understand the process.  Applicable to all accredited, certified and verified healthcare organizations.

The Joint Commission says it  “will continue to work with our accredited and certified organizations to find high priority areas of opportunity to improve both the experience and the learnings from surveys and reviews to enable and affirm the highest standards of healthcare quality and patient safety for all.”