In 2009, The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International were redesignated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the only Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety (the original designation was in 2005). Collaborating with the WHO Patient Safety Programme, this multifaceted initiative primarily focuses on the development and evaluation of standard operating protocols to address common patient safety problems.
The High 5s Project was launched by WHO in 2006 to address continuing major concerns about patient safety around the world. The High 5s name derives from the project’s original intent to significantly reduce the frequency of 5 challenging patient safety problems in 5 countries over 5 years.
The mission of the High 5s Project is to facilitate implementation and evaluation of standardized patient safety protocols within a global learning community to achieve measurable, significant, and sustainable reductions in challenging patient safety problems.
The countries participating in the High 5s Project are Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States. The project has been primarily supported by funding given to the Collaborating Centre by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.