Starting January 1, 2026, The Joint Commission introduced a meaningful shift in how hospitals are evaluated. The move from National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) to National Performance Goals (NPGs) places greater emphasis on what organizations can demonstrate over time, not just what they can document at a point in time.
For nurse leaders, executives, security teams and IT, this creates an opportunity to align around something often difficult to achieve: shared, trustworthy data. When teams are aligned and working from consistent information, safety efforts become more responsive, staffing discussions stay grounded in evidence and survey readiness becomes more sustainable, without adding unnecessary administrative burden.
What’s Changing in 2026, and Why It Matters to the Clinical Unit
The transition to National Performance Goals reflects a broader shift toward continuous performance measurement. Leaders are now expected to explain how safety and staffing processes function over time, supported by clear, consistent evidence that resonates with surveyors, boards and frontline teams alike.
Two areas in particular raise the bar: workplace violence prevention and safe, adequate staffing. Both depend on the same underlying challenge, translating complex, real-world workflows into reliable, measurable insight.
With the right infrastructure in place, organizations can reduce reliance on manual reporting, improve situational awareness and build a more consistent, data-informed culture of safety.
What Surveyors Will Expect to See
The 2026 NPGs emphasize measurable outcomes, particularly in areas tied to staff safety and staffing decisions. Rather than relying primarily on policies or narrative explanations, organizations will increasingly be asked to show what is happening in practice and how performance holds up over time.
Key goals include:
- NPG 12: Safe, adequate staffing
- NPG.02.04.01: Workplace violence prevention
- NPG.02.03.01: Culture of safety and leadership oversight
A notable requirement is the designation of an individual responsible for leading the workplace violence prevention program and reporting patterns and trends to the governing body. This is most effective when approached collaboratively. Nursing defines what good looks like on the unit, security shapes response workflows and IT ensures that data is reliable, secure and accessible.
| 2026 NPG Mandate | Compliance Evidence Required for Surveyors |
| Staffing Adequacy (NPG 12) | Audit logs of time-stamped staff presence; documentation of skill mix and workload distribution tied to performance outcomes; evidence of Nurse Executive involvement in staffing design. |
| Workplace Violence Prevention (NPG.02.04.01) | Records of training at hire, annually, and whenever program changes occur; pattern analysis of incidents; evidence of a “Designated Individual” providing oversight. |
| Annual Worksite Analysis | Data-backed documentation of program efficacy, including objective response-time metrics and geographic “hot spot” identification for safety risks. |
| Culture of Safety (NPG.02.03.01) | Automated reporting to the governing body; evidence that leadership-driven work processes prioritize quality and staff safety across all departments. |
The common thread across these expectations is consistency. The more routinely an organization captures and reviews reliable data, the easier it becomes to identify trends early, learn from events and clearly explain “how we know” during a survey.
Why Objective Evidence Matters, Even When Things Are Working
Accreditation and Deemed Status are critical not only for regulatory compliance, but for maintaining participation in Medicare, Medicaid and commercial payer programs.
The survey process often becomes a moment of operational clarity. It requires leaders to articulate how safety and staffing decisions are made, how performance is monitored and how improvement is sustained across units.
When organizations fall short of NPG standards, findings can escalate through Requirements for Improvement or Conditional Accreditation. In more serious cases, accreditation can be denied or revoked.
This is where objective, time-stamped evidence becomes essential. Rather than reconstructing events after the fact, organizations can demonstrate performance with confidence, supported by consistent data that reflects real-world conditions.
What RTLS Looks Like in Practice for Workplace Violence Prevention
Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) support workplace violence prevention by:
- Improving how quickly staff can request help
- Pinpoint where it is needed and;
- Coordinate an immediate response.
For security teams, this can mean faster dispatch and fewer unclear overhead calls. For nursing leaders, it reduces gaps in the response story. For IT, it introduces a solution that is governed, supportable and aligned with privacy requirements.
When RTLS-enabled duress badges are deployed, they support:
- Discreet help calls, allowing staff to trigger alerts without escalating the situation.
- Precise location awareness, ensuring responders know exactly where assistance is needed.
Beyond immediate response, RTLS provides a more structured approach to meeting the requirement for annual worksite analysis. Instead of relying on incomplete reports or recollection, organizations gain visibility into where incidents occur and how response workflows perform over time.
This allows the designated individual to present a clearer, data-driven view of safety practices while identifying targeted opportunities for improvement.
Turning Staffing Conversations into Measurable Reality
NPG 12 introduces a practical expectation. Can leaders clearly explain how staffing aligns with patient needs, and can they demonstrate that alignment consistently over time?
RTLS contributes by providing visibility into how care teams move and where workload concentrates across shifts and units. It does not replace clinical judgment or acuity tools, but it adds a shared layer of operational insight that supports more informed decision-making.
This includes:
- Workload distribution, showing where staff time is actually spent.
- Response patterns, capturing time-stamped presence at the bedside.
- Staffing gaps, highlighting where coverage does not align with patient demand.
With this level of insight, organizations can justify staffing decisions more clearly and demonstrate how adjustments are improving performance over time. When a surveyor asks how staffing decisions are made, leaders can respond with clear, consistent and well-supported evidence.
Pairing Better Data with Better Work
RTLS supports survey readiness, but its value extends well beyond compliance.
When location and response-time data are captured consistently, teams spend less time reconstructing events and more time learning from them. Over time, this supports more proactive planning, such as anticipating surge patterns, and more focused interventions in areas where delays or risks consistently emerge.
Making this work across teams requires alignment:
- Nurse leaders define the workflows that matter and validate insights against clinical reality.
- Executives set direction, remove barriers and focus investment where it has the greatest impact.
- Security teams refine response protocols and improve coverage.
- IT teams ensure systems are reliable, secure and audit-ready.
The most effective implementations begin with clear operational questions, a defined review process and strong feedback loops with frontline teams so insights translate into meaningful change.
Moving Forward with Confidence
Adopting RTLS is not simply about meeting regulatory requirements. It is about strengthening the systems that support staff safety and care delivery.
When nursing, security, IT and executive leadership align around shared data, organizations gain clearer situational awareness, more consistent performance review and a stronger ability to demonstrate both what is working and where improvement is happening.
With the 2026 requirements now in effect, organizations that begin planning early have the opportunity to implement, refine and scale solutions in a way that reflects the realities of care delivery, not just the expectations of a survey.
To learn more about how HID Healthcare RTLS supports real-time staff safety, response coordination and measurable compliance with 2026 Joint Commission Performance Goals, request a demo or explore how your organization can strengthen both staff safety and staffing visibility.
