The Joint Commission
ALC: ORYX FAQs for Assisted Living Facilities
- Kelly C
- jzeimen
The Joint Commission’s ORYX® initiative integrates performance measurement data into the accreditation process. ORYX measurement requirements support Joint Commission accredited organizations in their quality improvement efforts.
The Joint Commission is more than just an accrediting body. We are actively engaged in helping organizations improve their residents' safety and quality of care. As it relates to Performance Improvement, these quality and safety efforts are demonstrated by documenting elements of resident care.
For example: How many resident falls resulted in a transfer to the hospital? How frequently are resident preferences and goals of care discussed with new residents?
Here’s an example for ALC-02: There are 50 residents in the Assisted Living Community on the last day of the month. During this month, Resident A fell and is transferred to the hospital. Resident B falls and is not transferred to the hospital. The ALC-02 measure would have a denominator of 50 and a numerator of 1. This identifies 1 resident fell during the month and was transferred to the hospital.
Staff documents information on falls and transfers to the hospital for review.
ALC-02: Resident Falls: The effort to monitor the prevalence of falls at the facility level with transfer to the hospital is very important for protecting the health of facility residents. Identifying falls risk factors can help facilities reduce incidence of falls among their residents through clinical and non-clinical practices (Arling et al., 2014).
Performance Measurement data is submitted to The Joint Commission by all organizations with performance measurement requirements. The data is analyzed by statisticians at The Joint Commission and provided to facilities via Accelerate PI Dashboards on the JC Connect site.
For the ALC, this information shows trends in measure rates over time, as well as how the organization is performing comparative to others (when enough organizations are reporting). By providing feedback, ALCs can improve resident safety and quality of care.
For the Joint Commission, this information is used to generate national benchmarks and identify opportunities for improvement in clinical topic areas. In addition, this information is available to surveyors, so they may discuss Performance Improvement efforts your organization may enact as a result of seeing trends or spikes in resident quality of care and outcomes.
Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports will be available when enough data is collected.
ALC specific resources and information can be found via these ALC: ORYX FAQs within this site you are viewing now (also referred to as “Confluence”).
We also maintain a topic area for ALC facilities on the “Measurement” portion of the external Joint Commission website: https://www.jointcommission.org/measurement/accreditation---alc/
Organizations are provided with access to their own secure Joint Commission Connect website, which provides a variety of accreditation specific information for hospitals. For ALCs that are newly accredited, your Joint Commission Account Executive provides guidance for the accreditation process, and access to the respective Joint Commission Connect site.
For ALCs that are already accredited, staff request access to Joint Commission Connect from leadership at their own institution, usually Quality Directors, Accreditation Coordinators, etc.
If you’re not sure who can give you access to Joint Commission Connect, email us: HCOORYX@jointcommission.org
Once you have been given access, you may log in via https://www.jointcommission.org/login/
ALC chart-abstracted measures and specification manuals can be found on the measurement portion of the external Joint Commission website: https://www.jointcommission.org/measurement/measures/assisted-living-community-measures/
Next Section: Measure Specific FAQs
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