How do we know if our general practice/hospital/dentist/aged care service is providing safe and quality care? At the moment, it’s almost impossible to answer this question in any objective manner.
But at least we now have some idea of what sort of questions we should be asking, thanks to a report released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, called Towards national indicators of safety and quality in health care (and available here).
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care funded the Institute to develop safety and quality indicators for various health settings, including primary care and community health care services, hospitals, specialised health services (such as palliative care, defence health services etc), and residential aged care.
Now that we at least know the questions to ask, we’re somewhat further down the path towards open public reporting of health service performance.
The report notes, however, that the issue remains extremely contentious and that “Australia has yet to follow the lead of countries such as the United States of America and United Kingdom which have adopted detailed regular public reporting at the provider level”.
While there are many concerns about the impact and usefulness of open public reporting, the report says it could have two purposes: to provide transparency and to inform decision-making about overall priorities and system-level strategies for safety and quality improvement; and to inform quality improvement activities of service providers.
It cites one study comparing the degree to which performance information stimulated quality improvement activity in hospitals if it was publicly reported or if hospitals received private reports.
The authors reported finding strong evidence that “….making performance information public stimulates quality improvement in the areas where performance is reported to be low. Since quality improvement efforts among the public-report hospitals appear to be significantly greater than in hospitals given only private reports, there is added value to making performance information public.”
To give you an idea of the indicators suggested by the report, they include:
For primary care and community health services:
• General practices with a register and recall system for patients with chronic disease
• People with moderate to severe asthma who have a written asthma action plan
• Mental health care plans in general practice
• Annual cycle of care for people with diabetes mellitus
For hospitals:
• Assessment for risk of venous thromboembolism in hospitals
• Pain assessment in the emergency department
• Stroke patients treated in a stroke unit
• Complications of transfusion
• Health care associated infections acquired in hospital
• Adverse drug events in hospitals
• Malnutrition in hospitals and residential aged care facilities
• Pressure ulcers in hospitals and residential aged care facilities
For specialised health services:
• Post-discharge community care for mental health patients
• Functional gain achieved in rehabilitation
• Multi-disciplinary care plans in sub-acute care
For residential aged care:
• Oral health in residential aged care
• People receiving a medication review
• Falls resulting in patient harm in hospitals and residential aged care facilities
The report note that indicators already exist for specific types of services, including Key Performance Indicators for Public Sector Mental Health Services, Australian Council on Healthcare Standards clinical indicator sets, for specific population groups such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework, and the COAG National Healthcare Agreement Performance Indicators.
Now that we have all these questions to ask, when will the answers be made available to the public? And will we make best use of them? So many questions searching for answers…
