Joint Commission announces new standards on treating eating disorders

Behavioral health care organizations offering outpatient or residential treatment for eating disorders will be subject to several additional requirements, the Joint Commission announced April 28.

The changes come after a review found only two existing Joint Commission standards that specifically apply to the care of people with eating disorders. Those standards were limited to assessing a patient’s attitudes and behaviors toward food, observations from family members and monitoring the patient’s weight.

“Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate among people with behavioral health disorders. They can cause very complex emotional and physical problems, resulting in severe medical consequences, including heart disease, bone loss, muscle weakness and depression,” said Tracy Collander, LCSW, executive director of the Behavioral Health Care Accreditation Program at the Joint Commission, in a statement. “This is why the Joint Commission decided it was so important to develop and implement new standards to improve patient safety and quality of care for eating disorder patients and their families.”

The new standards include requirements for additional tests and screenings, risk assessments for falls and refeeding syndrome, appointing a clinical contact should a patient be transferred to a hospital, and developing care plans that provide for “sufficient nutritional rehabilitation to support regular and consistent weight” and/or “measurable improvement in eating disorders behavior.”

The requirements have the support of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

“Everyone who struggles with these life-threatening illnesses deserves quality treatment and recovery. The implementation of the Joint Commission standards is an important step forward for the eating disorders field and for the millions of individuals and families NEDA serves,” said NEDA CEO Claire Mysko said.

According to NEDA, 20 million women and 10 million men in the U.S. will have a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life, 95 percent of whom are between the ages of 12 and 25.

The new standards will be published in the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Behavioral Health Care Organizations (CAMBHC) and go into effect July 1.