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Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights

Commission Updates

Falls Prevention Guidelines

Preventing falls and harm from falls in older people: Best practice guidelines for Australian hospitals, residential aged care facilities and community care 2009.

Information Strategy

Major ACSQHC Initiatives

ACSQHC and Health Ministers’ Decisions : 2009 (PDF 37 KB)
ACSQHC and Health Ministers’ Decisions : 2008 (PDF 58 KB)

Measurement for Improvement Toolkit

The Toolkit is in the form of a manual, or “menu book”, and provides a set of practical methods to measure the safety and quality of clinical health care services.

Improving data and information for safer health care is a priority for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Without a standard set of measures of clinical performance and mechanisms to identify when patient safety incidents (including "near miss" incidents) occur, it remains a challenge both to prevent or minimise incidents that should not occur and to measure the effect of interventions.

To address this gap, the Commission has completed development of a Measurement for Improvement Toolkit (the Toolkit). The Toolkit was produced in the form of a manual, or “menu book”, and provides a set of practical methods to measure the safety and quality of clinical health care services. It includes practical instructions to assist facilities to collect, analyse and interpret the measurements. The Toolkit is applicable to a wide range of health care facilities across Australia, in the acute, subacute and community care settings. It is a management tool for use at all levels within a health care organisation, and is a means for measurement, and to support local improvement activities.

Toolkit Body and Part A (PDF 841 KB)
Toolkit Part B (PDF 682 KB)
Toolkit Part C (PDF 1733 KB)

Medication Safety Related Publications

NIMC Related Commission Publications

Open Disclosure Resources and Publications

OSSIE Guide to Clinical Handover Improvement

Patient Identification Resources

• Ensuring correct patient, correct site, correct procedure protocol
• Ensuring Correct Patient, Correct Site, Correct Procedure in Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Therapy and Oral Surgery
• Specifications for a standard patient identification band
• Technology Review of Solutions to Patient Misidentification
• Ensuring Correct Patient, Correct Site, Correct Procedure Protocol for Surgery: Review of implementation and proposals for action

Primary Care

National Safety and Quality Framework

The proposed National Safety and Quality Framework is designed to guide action to improve the safety and quality of the care provided in all health care settings over the next decade and contains twenty two strategies for improving the safety and quality of care for patients and consumers.

Reducing harm to patients from healthcare associated infection: the role of surveillance

This report summarises the state of healthcare associated infections (HAI) in Australia and makes recommendations for reducing HAI through surveillance and prevention.

Sentinel Events in Australian Public Hospitals 2004-2005

The Sentinel Events report is the first joint report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

The Sentinel events in Australian public hospitals 2004-05 report and sentinel events media release are available from the AIHW website.

Windows into Safety and Quality in Health Care

The series Windows into Safety and Quality in Health Care provides an insight into aspects of the safety and quality of patient care in Australia.

Updated: 09 June, 2010

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