September 15, 2000

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) will begin its triennial survey of the MGH Sept. 18. The survey is scheduled to end Sept. 22. The JCAHO surveyors, who will be identified by ID badges and usually escorted by MGH staff, may question employees about aspects of their jobs and may question patients about their care.

According to Maryanne Spicer, chair of the hospitalwide JCAHO steering committee, MGHers have been working hard to prepare for the survey. "Employees and staff have been giving it their best to get ready for this survey," she says. "We want to encourage employees to answer the surveyors' questions as best and as completely as they can. If they don't know an answer, it is acceptable to say they don't know. I'm confident that we will do well in the survey because of the hard work and dedication of all of our employees throughout the hospital."

For more information about the survey, call 726-5109. To access back issues of the FYI papers to help prepare for the survey, visit http://is.partners.org/mghfyi/fyi.htm.