(The Joint Commission: Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) -- Beginning Jan. 1, 2009, under a new Joint Commission policy, laboratory accreditation decisions will no longer immediately affect hospital accreditation decisions. This policy establishes comparability in the way that a laboratory with an adverse accreditation decision rendered by The Joint Commission or one of its cooperative partners such as the College of American Pathologists (CAP), or COLA (the clinical laboratory education, consultation, and accreditation organization) affects the hospital or other organizations with which the laboratory is affiliated. Currently, a laboratory’s accreditation has a direct effect on the accreditation status of its affiliated organization.

Under the new policy, the accreditation of laboratories and hospitals will continue to be linked due to the critical importance of laboratory services to the delivery of hospital care. An adverse laboratory accreditation decision, whether due to a survey by The Joint Commission, CAP, or COLA, will help prioritize the hospital’s or other organization’s next unannounced survey.

“The new approach meets the needs of Joint Commission customers and reinforces the importance of the laboratory in the delivery of patient care,” says Ann Scott Blouin, Ph.D., R.N., executive vice president in the division of accreditation and certification operations for The Joint Commission.

The Joint Commission has been evaluating and accrediting hospital laboratory services since 1979 and freestanding laboratories since 1995. Today, The Joint Commission accredits nearly 2,000 organizations providing laboratory services, representing almost 3,000 laboratories, including free-standing labs, and labs certified to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) that the U.S. Congress passed in 1988. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officially recognizes The Joint Commission Laboratory Accreditation Program as meeting the requirements of CLIA ’88.

For further information, visit www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/NewsReleases/nr_11_04_08.htm.