Joint Commission issues new Quick Safety on preventive care during COVID-19

Editor's Note

The Joint Commission on March 10 announced a new Quick Safety—“Issue 58: Keeping patients on track with preventative care during pandemic.”

The Quick Safety includes safety strategies and actions healthcare organizations can use to encourage their patients not to delay seeking care or treatment.

Data show that over the past year, some 40.9% of US adults have avoided care, and health-related screenings also are down because of concerns about COVID-19.

These include:

• 12% who avoided urgent or emergency care
• 31.5% who avoided routine care
• 89.2% who avoided breast cancer screenings
• 84.5% who avoided colorectal cancer screenings.

Children also have been affected by failure to seek preventive care, the Joint Commission says. As of May 2020, there has been a decline in age-based vaccines for almost every age group, including failure to get routine childhood vaccinations, including measles.