No hard-and-fast rule to discuss patient safety at EC committee meetings

There is no Joint Commission mandate for patient-safety-related concerns to be managed through the environment of care or safety committee.

Some of the former EC standards (or more properly, EPs) that were removed with the 2009 changeover did imply the expectation of a line of communication between the patient safety and physical environment folks.

One thing to be wary of is whether any patient safety conversations you have at the EC committee level are peer protected to the same degree as medical staff committees. Some states will allow you to manage all sorts of information with the protection of peer review, some others not so much.

I’d at least ask your risk management folks if they are aware of any pitfalls in managing patient safety stuff through the EC committee.