The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations was founded in 1951 as a private, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits hospitals and other healthcare organizations. In 1987, the JCAHO launched its Agenda for Change to create a more modem and sophisticated accreditation process to place primary emphasis on actual performance. Coincident with this new emphasis, a number of task forces were established, including two for infection control standards.