Hand hygiene, medication safety and patient identification are all on The Joint Commission’s list of National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) for 2025. NPSGs were designed to target identified patient safety issues of significant concern and to reduce that risk through process redesign or focus, says Kurt Patton, MS, RPH, founder of Patton Healthcare Consulting and a former director of accreditation services for The Joint Commission (TJC).
 
“When TJC first developed their sentinel event database, they began to identify some frequently occurring types of events, and with the assistance of a committee of patient safety specialists, consultants, and authors, they identified suggested process changes that would help to reduce these commonly occurring errors,” he explains. “TJC also wanted to focus attention on these issues, so they created a National Patient Safety Goal chapter to highlight these important patient safety issues.”
 
A committee of experts suggests additions and modifications to the NPSGs each year, Patton says. Those suggestions are then prioritized by leadership and eventually approved by the TJC board. NPSGs can stay in effect for many years before they are eventually retired or become normal standards to make room for new NPSGs and focuses.
 
“The movement into standards does not mean it is no longer looked at, but rather it is just one more routine standard expectation to be maintained,” Patton says.
 
The list of NPSGs for home health providers in effect in 2025 includes:
  • Identify patients correctly. Use at least two ways to identify patients. For example, use the patient’s name and date of birth. This is done to make sure that each patient gets the correct medicine and treatment.
  • Use medicines safely. Record and pass along correct information about a patient’s medicines. Find out what medicines the patient is taking. Compare those medicines to new medicines given to the patient. Give the patient written information about the medicines they need to take. Tell the patient it is important to bring their up-to-date list of medicines every time they visit a doctor.
  • Prevent infection. Use the hand cleaning guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization. Set goals for improving hand cleaning. Use the goals to improve hand cleaning.
  • Prevent patients from falling. Find out which patients are most likely to fall. For example, is the patient taking any medicines that might make them weak, dizzy or sleepy? Take action to prevent falls for these patients.
  • Identify patient safety risks. Find out if there are any risks for patients who are getting oxygen. For example, fires in the patient’s home.
“NPSG are always a focus of attention on survey,” Patton says. Spending some extra time on these issues can help your facility during a survey—and help a patient go home safely.
 
 
A version of this post was first published at Inside Accreditation & Quality, a sibling publication of Home Health Line.