field’s awareness of the Life Safety Code®* (LSC). To address this need, The Joint Commission Perspectives® publishes the column Clarifications and Expectations, authored by George Mills, MBA, FASHE, CEM, CHFM, CHSP, director, Department of Engineering, The Joint Commission. This column clarifies standards expectations and provides strategies for challenging compliance issues, primarily in life...

International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), an independent international organization established in 1925, develops, maintains, and elaborates radiological protection standards, legislation, and guidelines. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) provides scientific evidence. World Health Organization (WHO) and International Atomic Energy...

Prognostics and health management (PHM) technologies reduce burdensome maintenance tasks of products or processes through diagnostic and prognostic activities. These activities provide actionable information that enable intelligent decision‐making for improved performance, safety, reliability, and maintainability. However, standards for PHM system development, data collection and analysis techn...

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...

The advice of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is aimed principally at the regulators and operators that have responsibility for establishing protection standards. ICRP's present recommendations were published in 1991. Since then, the Commission has published additional recommendations, and the system of protection has become increasingly complex. The Commission ha...

iii Foreword ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of t...

The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) of the World Trade Organization recognises the international standards adopted by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in matters of animal health and zoonoses and those adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the Commission) in matters of food safety. The importance of the production phase i...

The Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran designed a comprehensive system as health care excellence model with participation of National Institute of Productivity & Organizational Excellence since January 2011 and introduced it in June 2012. The purpose of this paper is adapting of Joint Commission International Accreditation System in hospital by organizational excellence model in h...

The Joint Commission recently approved standards changes for accredited hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care organizations that provide diagnostic imaging services, including those ambulatory organizations that have achieved Advanced Diagnostic Imaging certification. The changes will be effective July 1, 2014, with additional requirements to be phased in by 2015. The standa...