This past week, for this health care provider, the unthinkable happened: a hospital rebelled,  and refused further accreditation review by the long-dominant and supremely influential arbiter of hospitals and their national rankings. The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is, as far as I know, an independent organization that has been around since before I ever dreamed of becoming a physician. To say any more about its history, development, and evolution would reveal my ignorance unless I scurried off during the writing of this post and did some hours of Internet search engine based research…

The story line is that the state of South Dakota has taken the unprecedented stand of declining having the Joint Commission to review and help the state reinstate the accreditation for the state psychiatric hospital of South Dakota! Continue reading →