Programs
The Commission's Nine Priority Programs were approved by the Australian Health Ministers' Conference on 24 July 2007.
- Priority Program 1: National Patient Charter of Rights
The aim of this program is to develop a national patient charter of rights that describes what a patient can expect from an encounter with the health system. The charter will include a nationally agreed sent of principles to underpin the provision of health care, wherever it is delivered. The program will also consider how patient charters can be linked to Commission programs or other initiatives to ensure there are drivers in place to support their enactment throughout the health system. - Priority Program 2: Open Disclosure
Open Disclosure is the open discussion of incidents that result in harm to a patient while receiving health care. This includes a discussion between patients and health care staff about what happened, why it happened and what is being done to prevent it from happening again. - Priority Program 3: Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI)
The aim of the Commission’s HAI program is to develop a national approach to HAI including strategies for ensuring practices are sustained and the development of an agreed National Plan for healthcare associated infection prevention. The project will focus on identifying and addressing systemic problems and gaps and ensuring a comprehensive range of action is undertaken in a nationally coordinated way by leaders, decision makers and public and private providers operating at different levels in the health system. - Priority Program 4: Patient Identification
In this program the Commission takes a national approach to patient identification focusing on activities where it can provide leadership for national activities, coordinate agreed standards for performance and support States, Territories and private health providers in their implementation of protocols and agreed safety improvement actions. - Priority Program 5: Clinical Handover
The purpose of this program is to identify, develop and improve clinical handover communication. Safe health care delivery for patients depends on effective communication between health care providers. Developing and implementing more consistent and reliable approaches to clinical handover is a key strategy to reduce communication errors. - Priority Program 6: Medication Safety
The objective of this program is to improve the safety of medication usage in Australia. Effective and safe use of medication is one of the greatest areas where potential improvements in the safety and quality of health care can be made. Because of the multiplicity of current and proposed initiatives in this area, there may be a key coordinating role for the Commission. - Priority Program 7: Accreditation
The primary objective of the project is to provide Health Ministers with an alternative model of accreditation that can be applied across all sectors of the health care system. - Priority Program 8: Quantification and Benchmarking (Information Strategy)
The Commission's Information Strategy outlines how the Commission will lead and coordinate the improvement of information and data collection to advance safety and quality. The Information Strategy contains four streams of work, each comprising a suite of projects which will be carried out collaboratively with stakeholders and experts. The Strategy is an evolving document and comments are welcome. - Priority Program 9: Harness Information Technology and Communication
This program aims to identify, review and, where appropriate, promote the use of information and communication technology that can significantly improve the safety and quality of health care.
