Future of Queensland healthcare standards announced
The Health Quality and Complaints Commission has announced plans to transition to the new national safety and quality health service standards.
Our nine healthcare standards will remain applicable to Queensland public and private hospitals and day hospitals until 31 December 2012. After this date we will retire six standards that are duplicated by the new national standards and retain three standards that are not included in the national standards for two years until 31 December 2014.
Standards to be retired from 31 December 2012
- Providers’ duty to improve health services
- Credentialing and scope of clinical practice
- Complaints management
- Ensuring correct patient site, side and procedure
- Hand hygiene
- Appropriate use of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis
Standards to be retained until 31 December 2014
- Review of hospital-related deaths
- Management of acute myocardial infarction on and following discharge or transfer
- Reducing the risk of venous thromboembolism
We will collect hospitals’ standards compliance data against all nine standards once more, in September 2012. From 2013 to 2014, we will assess ongoing hospital compliance with our three remaining standards through monitoring of healthcare complaints, expanded monitoring of reportable events and our planned clinical standards outcomes research.
Throughout this transition period and beyond, we will continue to monitor hospitals’ legislated duty to improve the quality of their services.
Healthcare safety and quality research underway
We have commissioned independent research on consumer perceptions and experience of healthcare safety and quality in Queensland.
Colmar Brunton Research, acting on our behalf, began contacting members of the public from 23 January 2012 to seek their participation in the telephone survey.
The survey is designed to benchmark community perceptions and experiences of both the HQCC and the health system in Queensland.
Results are expected to be finalised by the middle of this year and released to the public.
Medical Board of Australia releases sexual boundaries guidelines
In May last year we made a submission on the Medical Board’s consultation draft Sexual boundaries guidelines. We are pleased that many of our comments have been incorporated in the final guidelines.
The Sexual boundaries guidelines are consistent with the advice published in Good Medical Practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia and published on the Board’s website.
Queensland Mental Health Commission announced
A new mental health commission for Queensland has been announced.
The commission will perform all functions in relation to mental health, programs and services, including those provided in the community.
The commission is being established to assist people experiencing mental illness to access services when they are a risk to themselves or others as well as promote social inclusion, tackle stigma and discrimination and raise public awareness and understanding.
Our agency will continue to manage complaints about the quality of mental health care.
Joint Commission sentinel alert into healthcare worker fatigue
The US Joint Commission has released a sentinel alert that provides interesting insight into the link between healthcare worker fatigue and adverse events, showing fatigue compromises patient safety.
The Joint Commission is an independent not-for-profit organisation which accredits and certifies more than 19,000 healthcare organisations and programs in the United States.
View the alert
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