The Joint Commission (TJC) recently released its National Performance Goals for the Hospital Program, which will go into effect in January 2026. Formerly known as National Patient Safety Goals, the National Performance Goals (NPGs) are standards to improve quality and safety across healthcare institutions. New for 2026 is the addition of Goal 12: The hospital is staffed to meet the needs of the patients it serves, and staff are competent to provide safe, quality care.
The addition of this NPG is an achievement for nursing and patient safety. For Joint Commission accreditation, hospitals will need to maintain certain standards related to staffing. Emphasizing staffing as a core component is a major step to help ensure quality of care. This goal also takes into account the role of leadership in ensuring adequate numbers of nurses with the appropriate skill set to meet patients' needs.
AACN has prioritized Appropriate Staffing as a Healthy Work Environment Standard since 2005. In 2017, AACN spearheaded an initiative that gathered healthcare organizations to seek solutions to the staffing crisis that led to establishment of Partners for Nurse Staffing. In January 2022, Partners for Nurse Staffing launched a six-session Nurse Staffing Think Tank that produced a set of Priority Topics and Recommendations. In April 2022, AACN, along with the American Nurses Association and other key healthcare organizations, co-convened the National Nurse Staffing Task Force to provide a forum for powerful dialogue on a national scale. Direct care nurses, healthcare executives, nurse leaders, nurse scientists, quality and safety experts, patient and family advocates, and other subject matter experts met regularly to develop "Nurse Staffing Task Force Imperatives, Recommendations, and Actions," which was published in May 2023.
One of the five imperatives from the task force work was to "establish staffing standards that ensure quality care," with a recommendation to "propose that TJC enhance standards to support appropriate staffing" and an action to "recommend TJC develop a comprehensive and coordinated set of standards and/or a National Patient Safety Goal." Members of the task force met with a team from TJC to explore a goal related to staffing and later provided feedback on a draft.
"It is so rewarding to know that the work of the task force influenced the development of this new Joint Commission NPG. Even more rewarding is knowing that this recognition of staffing as a safety and quality indicator will improve patient care and outcomes," said Vicki Good, DNP, RN, CENP, CPPS, FAAN, chief clinical officer for AACN. "AACN is proud to have co-led this work and to see results from the efforts of so many passionate professionals who dedicated their time to translating the evidence into actionable recommendations."
Building upon AACN's decades of staffing advocacy and collaborative work, AACN set out to offer guidance to improve some of the many processes that affect appropriate staffing for acute and critical care. "AACN Standards for Appropriate Staffing in Adult Critical Care" was published in April 2024 and "AACN Standards for Appropriate Staffing in Adult Progressive Care" was published in April 2025. "Standards for Appropriate Staffing in Pediatric Critical Care" will be published in 2026.
The AACN community continues to identify innovative solutions and best practices that are presently in place; key staffing resources and staffing solutions are listed on AACN's Staffing in Acute & Critical Care page.