March 2013 - Hunter New England Health - NSW Government

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A better way to care: reaching the national standards manager of quality systems and risk, Gary martin They say consistency is the key to achieving your goals. That’s certainly true in the context of providing health care for our community. Excellence for every patient, every time is what we want for the people we provide care for. One of the ways we measure if we’re achieving this is through an accreditation program where our hospitals and health services are tested against a set of standards. For the first time, a national set of standards for safety and quality in healthcare has been developed in Australia, bringing with it a level of consistency that hasn’t been seen before. The National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards were developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care to improve the quality of health care nationally. There are 10 standards that clearly articulate what level of health care consumers can expect. In late 2011, the health ministers from every state endorsed the 10 standards and agreed to a national accreditation scheme. “This was an historic agreement, which has implications for the way our hospitals and health services will be accredited,” Manager of Quality Systems and Risk Gary Martin said. “The Executive Leadership Team has decided that we will transition our accreditation program to the national standards during 2013, with the aim of being accredited exclusively using the new standards from 2014. “The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) will continue to be our accreditation provider.” A national accreditation program will bring benefits for patients as well as allowing Hunter New England Health to benchmark itself against the rest of the country. “The focus is really on getting the core things right so there’s a strong foundation for the care we’re providing,” Gary said. “The standards are quite demanding and our executive team is keen for them to become part of normal business for us.” There are 256 actions across the 10 standards that organisations are required to meet and all of the actions must be met to pass accreditation. “They will bring quite positive benefits for patient care,” he said. The standards were put together following extensive consultation with the community and senior clinicians, including some senior doctors from Hunter New England Health. “Quality programs have appeared in the health arena for over a decade and a lot of progress has been made in that time to improve the safety and quality of care and decrease the number of incidents,” Gary said. “But there is always improvement to be made and what impresses me about the national standards is that they are designed to generate real system change. “We need to build our local health district on good foundations and the national standards will be an important part of this,” he said. “The standards fit neatly with our agenda of excellence for every patient, every time – and having everyone demonstrating that they are doing their jobs with excellence.” What this means for us Hunter New England Health has 14 “accreditation memberships” across the district. This includes eight services within the Primary and Community Network, one in Mental Health and six within the Acute Network. Every cluster and acute network has a quality coordinator whose job includes assisting services with preparation for the accreditation process. “Clinical Governance has undertaken an analysis at a district level to identify where we might have gaps between what we were required to have in place in the past and what the new national standards will require,” Manager of Quality Systems and Risk Gary Martin said. The 10 National Standards for Safety and Quality in Health Care Standard 1: Governance for safety and quality in health service organisations Standard 2: Partnering with consumers Standard 3: Preventing and controlling health care associated infections Standard 4: Medication safety Standard 5: Patient identification and procedure matching Standard 6: Clinical handover Standard 7: Blood and blood products Standard 8: Preventing and managing pressure injuries Standard 9: Recognising and responding to clinical deterioration in acute health care Standard 10: Preventing falls and harm from falls “A set of recommendations has been developed to address these gaps.” As part of this, the Executive Leadership Team has appointed an executive leader for each of the 10 standards to drive the process forward and clinical sub-committees have produced a suite of fact sheets on every standard. “Some services, including the McIntyre Cluster, the Upper Hunter Cluster and Mental Health have already undergone their own gap analysis,” Gary said. “The evidence requirements of the new standards are pretty significant, so it’s important that we are as prepared as we can be.” So it’s all hands on deck to prepare for the transition. “Everyone’s furiously working away,” Gary said. “All of our services that require accreditation will be tested on a minimum of standards one, two and three by December 2013,” he said. Hunter New England Health will transition fully to the National Standards exclusively in 2014. If you would like more information contact Clinical Governance or visit www. safetyandquality.gov.au/our-work/accreditation/ 6
A fresh approach to saluting Excellence Do you know a colleague, leader or volunteer who displays exceptional skills or qualities in their everyday work Perhaps you know someone who literally deserves to have their name up in lights Hunter New England Health’s annual awards program helps recognise and celebrate outstanding individual and team achievements, as well as commitment to innovation and quality of care for our patients. This year the awards have been refreshed to more strongly align to HNE Health’s strategic goals and the principles of Excellence. The overall program has been renamed the Excellence Awards, and will feature both the Quality Awards as well as a refined number of Achievement Awards. “Each year our staff work tirelessly to deliver high quality care for patients, and each year I’m pleased to hear about teams who go above and beyond the call of duty to provide services that exceed expectations. The 2013 Excellence Awards are designed to capture this spirit and commitment,” Chief Executive Michael DiRienzo said. EXCELLENCE AWARDS2013 Quality & Achievement The 2013 Excellence Awards dinner will be held on Wednesday, 21 August at Newcastle City Hall. At the event, winners of the Quality Awards and Achievement Awards will be announced. The refined Achievement Award categories now include Leader of the Year, Clinical Team of the Year, Support Team of the Year, Outstanding Contribution, and Volunteer/s of the Year. There will also the opportunity for the Chief Executive to give an "Excellence Award". Quality Award categories are likely to include Keeping People Healthy to Avoid Unnecessary Hospitalisation, Improving Access to Timely Quality Health Care -Improving Quality and Safety, and Improving Access to services when and where needed, Empowering Patients, Improving Primary Health Care in the Community, Collaboration – Working as a team and Building the Health Workforce If you know of a high achiever who deserves recognition, be sure to nominate them in this year’s awards program. Entries for both the Quality Awards and Achievement Awards open in early March. Keep an eye on the intranet page http://intranet.hne.health.nsw.gov.au/ awards for information as it comes to hand. do the numbers it’s elementary, our home loans are better value. Call 1300 655 116 Visti mycu.com.au Important notes: Eligibility, lending criteria, terms, conditions and fees apply. My Credit Union Limited | Australian Credit Licence Number 246 941. hnehealth.nsw.gov.au 7
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March 2013 - Hunter New England Health - NSW Government

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