AHA Concerns Over JCAHO Data Mining

The American Hospital Association (AHA) sent an advisory brief to its members about its concerns over the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) selling data to third parties that was collected for accreditation purposes. It raises HIPAA compliance issues and the AHA plans to seek guidance from HHS on privacy issues. AHA also said JCAHO's new data-mining program is a duplication of the Hospital Quality Alliance's program and would cause a conflict of interest.