Accreditation for urgent care.

The Urgent Care Association said it will discontinue its own accreditation program and instead will partner with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which currently provides an ambulatory care accreditation program. The two groups also said they will collaborate to develop quality standards specific to urgent care, for introduction in 2010. Discontinuing its own program and providing support services through the JCAHO's ambulatory care accreditation program will let the Urgent Care Association focus on other quality assurance issues specific to urgent care, executive director Lou Ellen Horwitz said in a statement. There are an estimated 8,000 urgent care centers in the United States, according to the association.