TY - JOUR PY - 2006// TI - The creation of emergency health care standards for catastrophic events JO - Academic emergency medicine A1 - Wise, R. A. SP - 1150 EP - 1152 VL - 13 IS - 11 N2 - The creation of health care standards by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in a defined area with known events follows a predictable process. A problem area (e.g., hand hygiene) is identified from multiple sources. The JCAHO then calls together experts from around the country, and through debate and the comparison of positions of various people within the health care arena, a new standard informed by these views can be developed. Once developed, it is vetted and becomes established as a Joint Commission standard. But what happens when an event has never happened, cannot be reliably predicted, and, one hopes, will never come to pass? How can one create any meaningful standards? This is the situation when considering a number of scenarios related to disasters and mass casualty events.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1069-6563 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1197/j.aem.2006.06.034 ID - ref1 ER -