By MICHAEL MILLENSON

The Joint Commission, which accredits four-fifths of the nation’s hospitals, is being accused of misleading consumers about the quality of care at those hospitals and then ignoring suggestions on how to correct the problem.

“The organization that accredits hospitals around the country, and voices support for transparency about hospital quality, has a Web site that obscures the reality of many hospitals’ performance,” said Charles Ornstein, president of the Association for Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) and a reporter for the public-interest journalism group ProPublica . In a March 1 letter sent to Dr. Mark R. Chassin, the Joint Commission’s president and CEO, Ornstein noted that not only has the group not addressed the “navigational issues” raised by AHCJ more than two years ago, but problems that make the commission’s QualityCheck site even less useful have cropped up.

For instance, that “Gold Seal of Approval” for your local hospital? Perhaps it should be called a Gold Seal of Possible Approval. Says the AHCJ: “[It] is misleading because hospitals with conditional accreditation or preliminary denial of accreditation still receive the same gold seal as fully accredited facilities.”Continue reading…