As someone who has spent most of my career working in healthcare staffing and operations, I've watched many quality and regulatory shifts over the years - but the upcoming change from The Joint Commission (TJC) really stands out.

Starting January 2026, TJC's National Performance Goals will include Goal 12: "The hospital is staffed to meet the needs of the patients it serves, and staff are competent to provide safe, quality care".

In practical terms, this means hospitals will need to demonstrate more than "we hired enough nurses". They'll need:

• A designated nurse executive overseeing staffing policies and procedures.
• A staffing plan that ensures a qualified registered nurse is on-duty 24/7, either delivering care or supervising nursing services.
• Ongoing monitoring of staffing adequacy - numbers, skill mix, credentials, competence, and the ability to adjust based on patient acuity or care setting.

Why does it matter? Because research and practice have shown for years that inadequate staffing correlates with worse patient outcomes, increased safety risks, nurse burnout and turnover. In elevating nurse staffing to a national performance goal, the ANA has said this is a "defining moment" for both the profession and patient safety.

So how should healthcare organizations respond? Here are some key action steps:

1. Conduct a staffing readiness audit - map current staffing models, credentialing workflows, supervision structures, reporting mechanisms, skill-mix data and gaps against the new Goal 12 criteria.
2. Build or refine staffing governance - appoint or confirm a nurse executive with oversight, set up escalation pathways for staffing shortfalls, align staffing strategy to quality and safety metrics, not just cost.
3. Enhance credentialing and competence tracking - ensure your onboarding and continuous education processes support documentation of credentials, competencies, skill-mix verification and periodic review (as required by NPG 12).
4. Leverage data and analytics - staffing adequacy isn't static. Patient volume, acuity, unit type and external threats (pandemic, surge, etc.) all influence it. Build dashboards that track staffing trends, identify risks ahead of time and allow proactive adjustments.
5. Partner for scale and flexibility - if your internal resources are stretched (especially given nationwide nurse shortages), work with a recruiting partner who understands healthcare workflows, compliance and credentialing. That's where PSG Global Solutions comes in. We've supported large health systems for more than 20 years with full lifecycle staffing solutions - screening, credentialing, onboarding, analytics and surge management.

The bottom line: With the new TJC goal, nurse staffing is no longer just an HR or nursing operations issue - it sits squarely in the quality, safety, and accreditation domain. Organizations that treat it as such will stay ahead of risk, meet standards, and gain competitive advantage.

To help hospitals prepare, PSG Global Solutions has developed a complimentary Goal 12 Readiness Checklist - a practical guide to assess where your organization stands and what steps to take before January 2026.

Want a copy? Just comment or message me directly, and I'll send it your way.

If you'd like to go a step further, my team and I are also happy to walk through your current staffing model and identify areas for optimization. Click Here to schedule an meeting. Let's make sure you're Goal 12-ready well before the deadline!