Community engagement
We are committed to working with our stakeholders to achieve our POSITIVE HEALTH ACTION vision. Engaging with healthcare providers, consumers and the community will lead to better health outcomes for Queenslanders.
Our stakeholders include:
- our community – all Queenslanders, health and consumer groups
- our clients – people who use our services
- our healthcare providers – both registered and unregistered organisations and individuals
- our community leaders – the Queensland Parliament, the Minister for Health, related jurisdictions and the media.
- our people - the Commission, our employees, advisory committees and stakeholder reference groups
Early last year, we asked our stakeholders to tell us how we were going and to advise us on how we could work together better. This feedback, together with the recommendations of the Health Quality and Complaints Commission Select Committee, informed our Stakeholder Engagement Plan 2008-09.
Goal and outcome
Our goal is to build strong relationships with stakeholders through targeted engagement. We want our stakeholders to understand what we do and to work with us to improve the safety and quality of healthcare.
Evaluation
We’ve set two key measures of our success – the percentage of the plan implemented (our target is 100% and at the end of the third quarter we had achieved 75%) and the quality of engagement with stakeholders (to be measured through a survey and focus groups in June/July 2009).
Stakeholder groups and priorities
Our stakeholders are many and diverse. Our plan includes actions to engage with:
- Queensland community
- Clients
- Hospital and day surgery facility staff and management*
- Medical practitioners*
- Healthcare providers
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples*
- Culturally and linguistically diverse peoples
- Parliamentary Committee - Social Development Committee
- Government
- Media
- Related jurisdictions
- Our employees
* While all stakeholders are important, influencing these stakeholder groups have been identified as a particular priority in 2008-09.
Hospital and day surgery facility staff and management
Purpose: To foster a culture of continuous heath service quality improvement.
Influencing healthcare providers is key to fostering a sustained improvement in the delivery of health services in Queensland. All 226 hospitals and day surgery facilities regularly report to us on their alignment with our seven healthcare standards and share their quality improvement initiatives and action plans. Find out more (link to standards pages on website)
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- individualised feedback after each reporting phase to help them identify opportunities for improvement
- education and engagement visits to share information and ideas
- consultation on the development of a verification framework so we can check the information we receive from hospitals accurately reflects what’s happening in the facility
- sharing some of the more than 6000 quality improvement initiatives provided to us so that other providers can learn and benefit
- a regular e-newsletter to keep staff and management informed about healthcare quality and safety.
Medical practitioners
Purpose: To engage general practitioners in developing, implementing and reporting on the heart attack care standard to foster a culture of continuous quality improvement.
We introduced our heart attack care standard in July 2007, but to date only hospitals have reported against it. We are now seeking to extend reporting on this standard to general practitioners, who play a pivotal role in the ongoing management of people who’ve suffered a heart attack.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include consultation with general practitioners and healthcare consumers on the implementation of the heart attack care standard in the community setting and the development of relevant standard compliance measures and reporting processes. more
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Purpose: To promote the rights of Indigenous peoples to high quality health care.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have higher rates of hospitalisation and higher prevalence rates for many health conditions compared to other Australians. Our experience shows they are also less likely to complain. We aim to contribute, alongside healthcare providers, consumers, community leaders, and research and other organisations, to improving the quality and safety of health services provided to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Queensland.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- the appointment of an Indigenous Liaison Officer to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and advise us on how we can better meet the needs of Indigenous clients
- cultural awareness training for all of our employees
- development of information materials in appropriate languages and formats
- building relationships with Indigenous healthcare providers and other support organisations
- attendance and a stall at community events such as NAIDOC Week celebrations and the Punyahra health festival in Logan.
Queensland community
Purpose: To promote healthcare rights.
Our community includes all four million Queenslanders and the many health and consumer groups who represent them.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- seeking the advice of our Consumer Advisory Committee and sharing information through member networks
- sharing easy-to-understand information about our services on our website and in our brochures and fact sheets
- providing information to regional and remote Queenslanders through the Queensland Government Agency Program
- building strong relationships with the 37 Health Community Councils across the State and Health Consumers Queensland.
Clients
Purpose: To promote healthcare rights.
We are committed to improving the quality of our service to the 5000 people who come to us each year for help.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- faster complaint handling
- an online complaint form so people can lodge a complaint at their own place and at a time that suits them
- a simple complaint service charter so clients know what they can expect for us
- a client experience survey so we can gather feedback on our service
- customer focus training for our employees
- a joint complaint agency It’s OK to complain web portal and a brochure, translated into 15 languages, to make it easier to contact the right agency.
Healthcare providers
Purpose: To foster a culture of continuous heath service quality improvement.
We work with healthcare providers every day – managing complaints, investigating health quality concerns and promoting quality improvement.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- seeking the advice and ideas of our Clinical Advisory Committee and Clinical Governance Reference Group and sharing information through member networks
- education and engagement visits to share information and ideas
- sharing quality improvement initiatives so that other providers can learn and benefit
- a regular e-newsletter to keep providers informed about healthcare quality and safety.
Culturally and linguistically diverse communities
Purpose: To promote healthcare rights.
It’s not always easy to complain if you are unhappy about the quality of a health service. It can be even harder if you don’t speak English or you come from a different culture. We want all members of our community to share their healthcare quality concerns with us as complaints often provide an opportunity for improvement.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- development of information materials in appropriate languages and formats
- attendance and a stall at the Queensland Multicultural Festival.
Parliamentary Committee
Purpose: To reinforce the HQCC’s independence and keep parliamentarians informed about healthcare quality issues.
Last August, the Government announced plans to increase the HQCC’s independence by establishing a parliamentary committee to which we would report. In April, the Premier announced the new Social Development Committee would oversee the HQCC.
Once the committee is formed, our engagement actions will include regular briefings and information exchange with the committee as well as fulfilling our reporting obligations.
Government
Purpose: To keep the Queensland Government and all parliamentarians and local councillors informed about healthcare quality issues.
As community leaders, parliamentarians and local government councillors have extensive networks with local organisations and opinion leaders. The Minister for Health and the Shadow Minister for Health are key stakeholders, as is the Director-General of Queensland Health.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include:
- regular meetings with the Minister for Health, the Shadow Minister and the Director-General to share information
- updating parliamentarians on our progress in implementing the recommendations of the Health Quality and Complaints Commission Select Committee
- providing details of our achievements and future plans when furnishing our annual report
- distributing brochures and posters promoting our services via electorate offices and council shopfronts.
Media
Purpose: To share information about the work of the HQCC through the media.
The media play an important role in sharing information and shaping community opinion. It is important for us to utilise the mainstream media to disseminate information about our services, investigation outcomes and achievements. We also target specialist media to reach healthcare professionals and Indigenous peoples.
Our key engagement action for 2008-09 was the appointment of a Media Officer to build strong relationships with the media, promote the HQCC, answer media queries and write articles for publication.
Related jurisdictions
Purpose: To build strong working relationships with related jurisdictions to increase cooperation, minimise duplication and improve healthcare safety and quality.
Related jurisdictions include the Medical Board of Queensland, Health Practitioner Registration Boards, Queensland Nursing Council, chief Health Officer, State Coroner, Crime and Misconduct Commission, Queensland Ombudsman, Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian and the Queensland Police Service. We have developed a Memorandum of Understanding with our related jurisdictions in Queensland to better manage complaints and investigations.
Our inter-state complaint and quality improvement agency counterparts also fall into this category.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include continued work with our Memorandum of Understanding partners to improve inter-agency coordination, and regular meetings and information sharing with Queensland agencies and inter-state counterparts.
Our employees
Purpose: To nurture a culture of continuous quality improvement within our team.
Our people are our most important asset. We are committed to recognising their dedication to improving the quality of healthcare in Queensland by providing a positive workplace that recognises and supports their individual needs.
Our engagement actions for 2008-09 include staging our annual cultural survey, development and implementation of our cultural improvement plan, improving our recruitment and selection processes and introducing a new weekly staff update to keep people informed about happenings across the organisation.