The Joint Commission has delayed the implementation of new and revised diagnostic imaging standards that were to take effect July 1, 2014, with additional changes to be phased in by 2015.
The delay is due to feedback from stakeholders that caused the organization to reconsider several issues, it said.
While there was praise for the overall effort, there were also concerns about several critical standards. The feedback highlighted "issues that may not have been either identified or sufficiently evaluated during the standards development process," the Joint Commission said. "Some of these issues highlighted complexities that require us to engage in further research in order to ensure that the new standards best promote the improvement of quality and safety."
As a result, the July 2014 implementation of the revised requirements that appear in the "2014 Update 1 to the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual" for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care has been postponed. The Joint Commission said it now aims to implement the revised standards by July 2015, releasing a full set of requirement at that time, instead of partial sets over 2014 and 2015.
Toward this end, the organization is collecting additional information about several critical areas of radiation safety:
- Documentation of radiation dose
- Annual equipment performance evaluations by a medical physicist or MR scientist
- Minimum qualifications for radiologic technologists who perform CT
- Requirements that align with California's CT law
Additional questions or feedback may be addressed to [email protected], the Joint Commission said.
