Resources

Trying to improve care in human services can be overwhelming. We start out with great aspirations to fix a care quality issue. But as we get closer to the problem it appears to loom ever larger, and we wonder what we’ve got ourselves into. Most care quality issues are entrenched and multifaceted and can’t be solved by a single solution or big-bang change. Often our initial enthusiasm wanes and we default to revising the procedure and running training because everything else seems too hard. Essentially, we’ve wasted time and effort on maintaining the problem, rather than finding the solution.

Striking a balance between patient safety and professional autonomy is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach. Multiple challenges stand in the way of a balanced approach, such as...

How many aged care residents receive care based on the best available evidence? We all want this for the people we serve – but what’s really happening?

This ‘CareTrack’ paper reports on the first Australian study of adherence to evidence-based care for people in long-term care using a standardised method. The study examined the care received by 294 residents across 27,585 care encounters in 25 long-term care (aged care) facilities. 

Unwarranted variation in procedures and outcomes (a key component of appropriate care) is a major challenge in healthcare. Reducing unwarranted variation in care processes and outcomes can reduce wasteful, unnecessary or even harmful care. Increasing attention is being paid to the rich information on care appropriateness contained in clinical registry and clinical audit data, but it can be challenging to interpret this data for broader quality monitoring purposes.

As part of their work to reduce healthcare variation, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare provides a range of case studies that demonstrate how unwarranted clinical variation can be successfully addressed.

The public expects to receive care of the same quality whenever and wherever they receive it. Yet, research shows that care organisations do not function in the same way on each day of the week, or during the night compared with daytime hours. This ‘patterned organisation of time’, known as ‘temporal structuring’, has been explored in studies relating to seven-day-a-week services, with the ‘weekend effect’ impact on outcomes of those admitted on weekends, as one example.