Joint Commission releases sentinel event stats for first half of 2020

Editor's Note

The Joint Commission on August 12 released its sentinel event statistics for the first half of 2020. From January 1 through June 30, the Joint Commission reviewed 437 sentinel events.

The most frequently reported events were in the following categories:

• Care management, 165
• Surgical or invasive procedures, 131
• Unassigned events at time of report, 46
• Suicide, 41
• Protection events, 38
• Environment events, 12
• Product or device, 4.

Though COVID-19 has presented challenges for healthcare organizations, the number of sentinel events was comparable to 2019, the Joint Commission says.