The change, effective in 2027, is intended to simplify patient safety reporting and reduce administrative burden for healthcare organizations.
Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) announced plans to align their patient safety event reporting frameworks by adopting NQF’s updated Serious Reportable Events (SRE) List into the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Events List.
The change is intended to streamline safety event reporting and eliminate the need for healthcare organizations to maintain separate measurement frameworks. The updated list will take effect Jan. 1, 2027, for all Joint Commission–accredited organizations in the United States and internationally, giving healthcare organizations time to prepare for the transition.
“This marks a significant step toward simplifying safety event reporting for clinicians, hospitals, and health systems worldwide, reducing duplicative reporting tasks and allowing them to focus more on making care safer,” said Jonathan B Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of Joint Commission, in a release. “Establishing a common standard for measuring and tracking patient safety events will not only reduce reporting burden, it also will enhance the quality and completeness of safety event data. With a clearer, more comprehensive picture of these events, healthcare organizations globally can direct their improvement efforts where they are needed most, making care safer and more effective for every patient.”
NQR’S SRE List for Reporting
More than 30 states and hundreds of healthcare organizations currently use NQF’s SRE List for required or voluntary reporting, although implementations often vary. Joint Commission and NQF also released a report, Aligning Patient Safety Event Reporting, outlining the updates and providing guidance intended to help organizations implement the changes more consistently.
The report includes a crosswalk comparing the two frameworks to help accredited organizations understand how the updated SRE categories correspond to existing Sentinel Events.
Joint Commission first introduced its Sentinel Events List in 1996 to help accredited healthcare organizations track and analyze serious safety incidents that result in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm. NQF launched the Serious Reportable Events List in 2002 to identify a subset of patient safety events considered serious and largely preventable.
“Serious Reportable Events—when they occur—provide critical opportunities for learning and improvement,” said Elizabeth Mort, MD, MPH, vice president and chief medical officer at Joint Commission, in a release. “Since the SRE List was last updated in 2011, the landscape of healthcare delivery has evolved in profound ways. New care models and modalities have emerged, and care is now delivered in a wide range of traditional and non-traditional approaches. The newly updated list more accurately reflects today’s modern healthcare environment.”
In addition to adopting the updated SRE categories, Joint Commission said it will retain three workforce safety events from its previous Sentinel Events List: homicide, sexual abuse or assault, and physical assault of a staff member. Beginning in 2027, these workforce events will be combined with the patient-focused SRE categories to form the revised Sentinel Events List.
Joint Commission will continue to expect healthcare organizations to identify sentinel events, analyze root causes, and implement improvements to prevent recurrence. Reporting sentinel events to Joint Commission will remain voluntary, and the organization will continue publishing an annual public report summarizing reported events and trends.
NQF began updating the SRE List through a consensus-based process in 2024 with support from Elevance Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Joint Commission also provided financial support to help complete the update and finalize the revised list.
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