This afternoon, I am to write about the Joint Commission International (JCI) Management of Communication and Information (MCI) Standard MCI.5 which states that “The leaders ensure that there is effective communication and coordination among those individuals and departments responsible for providing clinical services.”

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Surely, the Health Information Management (HIM) / Medical Records (MR) practitioner’s practice is not responsible for providing clinical services, thus Standard MCI.5 will definitely not require any HIM / MR practitioner to comply with it.

However because Standard MCI.5 is included among other standards found in the MCI Chapter of the JCI manual (4^th edition) that mostly apply to the practice of HIM / MR (all of which I have completed posting on this blog), I still wish to write about this standard so that HIM / MR practitioners will be aware and also that they will appreciate the ongoing communication and coordination among those individuals and departments responsible for providing clinical services in a typical hospital setting. A HIM / MR practitioner will perhaps then understand and appreciate the demand for medical records use in the dissemination of patient care information among fellow colleagues operating from different departments responsible for providing clinical services.

From the post The JCI Manuals, 5th Edition are effective 1 April 2014  (this link will open in a new tab of your current browser window), readers will now know that hospitals need to begin to focus their hospital accreditation program based on the 5th edition of the JCI international standards for hospitals.

Examining this 5th edition of the JCI international standards for hospitals, I found that there are many changes to this 5th edition of the hospital manual. Expect to find requirement changes that “raise the bar” on compliance expectations in addition to finding more clarity over and above nearly all of the text that appeared in the 4^th edition.

One major change I found on further examination of the 5^th edition is that you can no longer find the MCI Chapter in the 5th edition. The “Management of Communication and Information” (MCI) in the previous edition (4^th edition) is now known as the “Management of Information” (MOI) chapter (5^th edition).

Nonetheless, I looked for the Standard MCI.5 in the MOI chapter of the 5^th edition, but it was no longer there among the rewritten MOI chapter. Delving deeper, I found that Standard MCI.5 is now moved and consolidated with similar requirements of Standards, and in this case to the “Governance, Leadership, and Direction” (GLD) chapter in the 5^th edition.

The Standard MCI.5 now combines with MCI.4 (also from the 4th edition) in the GLD chapter of the 5^th edition “to better align hospital leadership requirements; revises standard, intent, and MEs to clarify expectations” (JCI 2013, p.161) to form the Standard GLD.3.2 in the 5^th edition which states that “Hospital leadership ensures effective communication throughout the hospital. “

I shall be writing about the Standard GLD.3.2 of the 5^th edition in the next part. What I plan to write in this next part will also relate to the Standard MCI.4 which states that “Communication is effective throughout the organization.” which I have already posted in the post JCI Standard MCI.4 – accuracy and timeliness of information in the hospital through effective communication (this link will open in a new tab of your current browser window).

References:

1. Joint Commission International, 2010, Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards For Hospitals, 4th edn, JCI, USA
2. Joint Commission International, 2013, Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards For Hospitals, 5th edn, JCI, USA