When Hospital Inspectors Are Watching, Fewer Patients Die

March 29, 2017

(New York Times) – Hospitals in the United States are accredited by the Joint Commission, which periodically makes unannounced inspections, spending several weeks assessing whether the staff is following best practices. Now a new study suggests that when the inspectors are watching, fewer people die. The study, in JAMA Internal Medicine, used records of Medicare admissions from 2008 to 2012 at 1,984 hospitals. During that time, there were 244,787 admissions during Joint Commission inspections, and 1,462,339 in the three weeks before and after.