Joint Commission’s New Staffing National Patient Safety Goal (NPG 12) Effective January 2026

The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goal 12 (NPG 12), a new standard that places staffing at the forefront of patient safety and quality outcomes, will take effect January 2026. While staffing expectations previously appeared across multiple standards, NPG 12 brings them together into a single requirement that emphasizes adequate staffing in relation to outcomes and performance.

These new expectations align closely with the APNA Position: Staffing Inpatient Psychiatric Units, which calls for connecting staffing variables with unit outcomes, examining skill mix and team stability, and using tools such as the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) Program to evaluate staffing effects.

National Patient Safety Goal 12
The hospital is staffed to meet the needs of the patients it serves, and staff are competent to provide safe, quality care.

 – The Joint Commission National Performance Goals Effective January 2026 for the Hospital Program, p. 32

Notably, the new standard is specific that a nurse executive must direct nurse staffing. This nurse executive, who must be a licensed registered nurse (RN), is responsible for the operation of nursing services, including determining the nursing policies and procedures and types and numbers of nursing and other staff necessary to provide nursing care.

NPG 12 also stipulates that staffing should be part of performance improvement activities. Specifically, when a hospital or unit “identifies undesirable patterns, trends, or variations in its performance related to the safety or quality of care (for example, as identified in the analysis of data or a single undesirable event), it includes the adequacy of staffing, including nurse staffing, in its analysis of possible causes” (NPG.12.06.01).

The APNA Position: Staffing Inpatient Psychiatric Units (last updated February 2023) specifically recommends building the structure that links staffing and unit outcomes incorporating patient needs, staffing and unit variables. It poses important questions about staffing, including determining the relationship between skill mix and stability of staffing group.

The following questions can guide the participatory process of staffing inpatient psychiatric units:

• Patient variable: Does the staffing level align with consumer needs?
• Staff Context: What is the mix of staff experience levels and the stability of the staff team?
• Unit Context: What is the health of the organizational culture and practice environment?

 – APNA Position: Staffing Inpatient Psychiatric Units, February 2023

The position also includes useful staffing indicators that nurses can use to explore the dynamics underlying negative quality events. It further calls for establishing benchmarks of safety, quality, and staffing, particularly using the Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Quality Reporting (IPFQR) program to evaluate staffing. NPG 12 has the potential to help focus these efforts and build a structure for psychiatric-mental health nurses to share how their unit/hospital is responding to these new standards.

December 2025