TJC has proposed revisions to the Human Resources chapter in the Behavioral Health Care Accreditation Manual. The proposed revised standards are available on the TJC website on the Standards Field Review page.

The Field Review page contains both the proposed new standards/elements of performance and a crosswalk of the current standards to the proposed revisions.

The proposed revisions are an attempt to streamline and simplify the HR requirements pertaining to both staff and the category of practitioners that has been referred to as Licensed Independent Practitioners (LIPs). In the current HR standards, the requirements for LIPs are separate and more detailed than those for staff. These requirements for LIPs had been modeled after similar requirements for LIPs that are contained in the Medical Staff chapter of the Hospital Accreditation Manual. In the proposed standards, most of the requirements for LIPs are not defined separately than those for staff. Rather, the majority of requirements for both groups are addressed jointly in each of the standards.

Some of the highlights in the proposed revisions include the following:

• Greater clarity on job descriptions and what they need to include
• Allowing (in some instances) the use of primary source verification that has been completed by another Joint Commission accredited organization
• Simplification of the concept of granting clinical responsibilities to LIPs

As an accredited organization that will be affected by these proposed changes, it’s important to provide feedback to TJC. Also, be aware that survey findings in the Human Resources chapter are very common on Behavioral Health surveys. So, we urge you to take the time to read the proposed changes and give TJC your feedback. The field review of the proposed standards ends on March 13, 2014.