JOINT COMMISSION RESOURCES PUBLICATIONS
Natural and man-made disasters have a tremendous impact on human lives and place a heavy strain on health care systems. This was made evident in 2008 when Hurricanes Gustov and Ike hit the Gulf Coast and Tropical Storm Hanna reached the East Coast of the US. Health care facilities turned to their emergency preparedness plans to help them deal with these disasters. Hospitals transferred their power to generators, positioned sandbags and pumps in areas prone to flooding, and tested communication equipment. They also provided for patient needs by relocating patients to safer areas, refilled prescriptions using alternative means, stockpiled food and water, and served as sources of information for the community. Disasters can strike anywhere, anytime and your organization needs to be prepared.
Emergency Management in Health Care: An All-Hazards Approach 
Recent disasters have made it clear that it is not enough for health care organizations to plan for individual emergency events. Instead, organizations committed to serving their communities must demonstrate the ability to respond to combinations of escalating events. With this in mind, The Joint Commission revised its emergency management standards for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and long term care organizations in 2008. Specifically, the standard that requires organizations to address emergency management was broadened into eight new standards that became effective January 1, 2008.
Emergency Management in Health Care: An All-Hazards Approach is a practical guide to provide additional help to health care organizations plan for managing the critical areas of emergency response by assessing their needs and preparing staff to respond to events most likely to occur, regardless of the cause(s) of the emergency situation. This book guides hospitals and long term care organizations in planning for the management of the six crucial areas of emergency response, and encourages and enables them to assess their needs and prepare staff to respond to events that are likely to occur. With a sound understanding of and a specific plan for its response to these six areas, organizations can boast an all-hazards approach that supports a level of preparedness sufficient to address a range of emergencies.
Environment of Care Essentials for Health Care, Ninth Edition
The most up-to-date Environment of Care, Emergency Management, and Life Safety standards and survey information for the accreditation process—all in one convenient spiral-bound volume. That's the heart of this must-have book. This popular product now features the new EC, EM, and LS chapters, developed through the Joint Commission's Standards Improvement Initiative (SII). It includes with it an Environment of Care Checklist CD-ROM—and an electronic version of the popular EC, EM, and LS Standards Matrix.
Environment of Care Essentials for Health Care, Ninth Edition features information on how to understand the new EC, EM, and LS chapters and numbering and why this was developed. It explains how EC, EM, and LS will be surveyed and provides details on the new scoring—particularly for life safety. The book is the inside guide to understanding the on-site environment of care survey portion of the unannounced survey accreditation process.
A special added feature is an Appendix of the EC, EM, and LS "history tracking charts" showing the 2008 standards tracked to the corresponding 2009 standards, and vice versa.
This highly useable book presents the EC, EM, and LS standards that ambulatory care, behavioral health care, critical access hospital, hospital, laboratory, long term care, Medicare/Medicaid Certification-based long term care, office-based surgery practices, and home care organizations have in common. It's an invaluable tool for managers in charge of multiple facilities.