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Joint Commission Resources and MediRegs® Introduce E-dition Compliance Monitor

(RIVERWOODS, ILL. AND OAK BROOK, ILL., October 6, 2009) – Hospital risk managers, accreditation specialists and compliance officers spend precious time cross-referencing, validating and keeping up to date on federal and state regulations and Joint Commission requirements. Not keeping current can have serious patient safety and financial consequences. The E-dition Compliance Monitor, powered by Joint Commission Resources (JCR) and MediRegs®, part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, offers a one-of-a-kind, Web-based alternative—a daily updated, pre-selected library of industry regulations. With the E-dition Compliance Monitor, hospital leaders and staff can stay on top of requirements from The Joint Commission and regulatory bodies such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state regulators.

JCR is a non-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission. MediRegs® provides integrated health care compliance content and software solutions for professionals in health care, higher education and life sciences.

E-dition Compliance Monitor is designed to improve performance, better manage risk and save time by providing hospitals with a single viewpoint to essential information necessary to maintain continuous compliance with standards and regulations.

“Many factors go into providing safe patient care, and the E-dition Compliance Monitor is powerful one-stop shopping across many sources of compliance, can streamline the compliance process, and greatly enhance how that is accomplished,” says Karen H. Timmons, president and CEO, JCR. “The combined efforts of JCR and MediRegs have produced a tool that holds the potential to save valuable resources in the patient care setting.”

Specifically, the E-dition Compliance Monitor allows users to:

• Eliminate the time and effort spent searching manuals or Internet sites.
• Link to relevant regulatory content from within The Joint Commission E-dition tools - the electronic manual with full search capability and filter features.
• See requirements by applicable federal and state oversight bodies organized by Joint Commission chapter.
• Receive automated e-mail alerts regarding changes from the regulatory bodies selected by the user.

“We are pleased to be collaborating with JCR to offer the innovative E-dition Compliance Monitor,” says Steve Lefar, MediRegs General Manager. “Quality of care, risk management and compliance are becoming increasingly intertwined via regulation, enforcement and patient safety initiatives. Providing this resource for hospitals, vendors and other industry participants to ease the burden out of piecing it all together is one way we are working to improve hospital performance and allow our customers to focus on taking care of patients.”

E-dition Compliance Monitor is available through JCR or MediRegs. To contact JCR for more information, please call JCR Customer Service at 1-877-223-6866 or visit www.jcrinc.com. To contact MediRegs, please call 1-800-808-6800 or visit www.mediregs.com.

About JCR

Joint Commission Resources (JCR), a not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission, is the official publisher and educator of The Joint Commission. JCR is an expert resource for health care organizations, providing consulting services, educational services and publications to assist in improving quality and safety and to help in meeting the accreditation standards of The Joint Commission. JCR provides consulting services independently from The Joint Commission and in a fully confidential manner. Please visit our web site at www.jcrinc.com.

About Wolters Kluwer Law & Business

MediRegs, a provider of specialized healthcare compliance and reimbursement research products and workflow tools, is part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, a leading provider of research products and software solutions in key specialty areas for legal, business and healthcare professionals. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, a unit of Wolters Kluwer, is based in New York City and Riverwoods, Ill.

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