Indicators – Colonoscopy Clinical Care Standard

Indicators have been developed to support monitoring of the care recommended in the standard. Clinicians and healthcare services can use the indicators to support local quality improvement activity.

Indicator specifications

Measurement is a key component of quality improvement processes. The Commission has developed a set of indicators to support clinicians and healthcare services to monitor how well they are implementing the care recommended in this clinical care standard. The indicators are intended to support local quality improvement activities. No benchmarks are set for these indicators by the Commission.

The definitions required to collect and calculate indicator data for this clinical care standard are specified online at meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/803424.

METEOR is an Australian web-based repository of nationally endorsed data and indicator definitions, hosted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Indicators for local monitoring

Each indicator is described below and links to individual specifications are provided. Indicators are intended to be used in conjunction with the quality statements in the standard and are numbered accordingly.

2 – Appropriate and timely colonoscopy

7 – Procedure

Indicator 7a

Proportion of patients who had a colonoscopy whose bowel preparation was adequate using a validated assessment tool.

METEOR link: meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/803428

Indicator 7b

Proportion of patients who had a colonoscopy whose entire colon was examined to the caecum and/or terminal ileum.

METEOR link: meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/803430

Indicator 7c

Proportion of patients who had a colonoscopy that detected one or more adenoma(s).

METEOR link: meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/803432

Indicator 7d

Proportion of patients who had a colonoscopy that detected one or more sessile serrated lesion(s).

METEOR link: meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/803434

9 – Reporting and follow-up

Measuring and monitoring patient experience

Systematic routine monitoring of patients’ experiences of healthcare is an important way to ensure that service improvements and patient-centredness are driven by the patients’ perspective. This is the case in all health service organisations, including those performing colonoscopy.

While there are no indicators in this standard specific to patient experience measurement, the Commission strongly encourages health service organisations to adopt the Australian Hospital Patient Experience Question Set (AHPEQS). The AHPEQS is a short 12 question generic patient experience survey which has been tested and found reliable and valid for both day-only and admitted hospital patients across a wide variety of clinical settings.

The AHPEQS question set is available for both private and public sector health services, and has been translated into 20 languages.

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Clinical Care Standards