About the Joint Commission

Joint Commission Accreditation Status Offers Insight into Hospital Quality

You expect and deserve quality care when you're hospitalized.

But what, exactly, is quality care?  And how do you know if your hospital is truly providing it? Beyond a few vague notions of what constitutes good care, the rest may be a mystery to you.

Fortunately, most hospitals in the United States are closely monitored. Reports of their quality are available to you through the Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations in the United States.

On Track

The Joint Commission accredits approximately 80 percent of the nation's hospitals, accounting for about 96 percent of the nation’s total hospital beds. Essentially, the accreditation process involves evaluating the hospital by examining two questions: "Is the hospital doing the right things?" and "Is it doing them well?"

During on-site visits, Joint Commission surveyors assess compliance against more than 500 national consensus standards to answer those questions. Standards address everything from patient safety, pain management and patient rights, to infection control, emergency management, staffing, and restraint and seclusion.

"Joint Commission accreditation is the gold standard in health care," says Mark Forstneger, a Joint Commission spokesman. "It's an objective, independent audit. It tells [hospitals] what they're doing well and what they could be doing better."

Learn more about the Joint Commission process and what is evaluated

Learn about the different categories of accreditation

To Check a Hospital’s Accreditation Status

To obtain information about your hospital's accreditation status, contact the Joint Commission:

By phone, at (630) 792-5800. 

By mail, at One Renaissance Blvd., Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181.

Or via the Internet, at “Quality Check,” the online accreditation information source published by the Joint Commission.