The Joint Commission (TJC) standards require accredited laboratories to implement an ongoing, organization-wide, integrated safety program that identifies and reduces unanticipated adverse events and other safety risks to patients and staff.
TJC also requires that the full range of safety issues are included within the scope of the safety program. This includes potential errors, sentinel events, and near-misses. Laboratories are to track sentinel events and near misses to attain a clear picture of where obstacles to patient safety are occurring. An understanding of these events allows laboratories to work towards implementing better processes to improve patient safety. Laboratory leaders are to provide and encourage the reporting of system or process failures in a blame-free manner.
