Resources

Health and social care standards have been widely adopted as a quality improvement intervention. Standards are typically made up of evidence-based statements that describe high-quality care as an outcome or process of care delivery. They involve stakeholders at multiple levels and multiple activities across diverse services. It’s not difficult to see why many problems challenge effective implementation. Getting people on board is hard. Staff see standards as ‘extra work’. Quality managers and clinicians may be at odds, both with different agendas. Line managers may see accreditation as the quality manager’s job, rather than as part of their responsibility for meeting standards of care. Everyone may be doing their best, but there are many barriers to success.

There are many documented benefits of accreditation. These include driving the establishment of organisational structures and processes, promotion of a quality and safety culture, and improvement in care.  Organisational benefits in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and integration of health services, innovation, support for evidence-based decision-making, and increased stakeholder engagement, have also been discussed in the literature. 

Access important websites relating to safety, quality and regulatory standards.

The AICG community can easily access important websites relative to safety, quality and regulatory healthcare standards. Browse our carefully curated list of websites below. 

Governing bodies play a critical role in aged care – they set the direction for, and culture of, the organisation, directly influencing the safety and quality of care provided to consumers.

Variations in the way care is accessed or delivered, and in clinical outcomes, can be highly informative. It may be that such variations are warranted or expected (for example, the surge in telehealth at the outset of the pandemic, or in the number of infection-related deaths) or may reflect person-centredness and individual choice. However sometimes variations may be ‘unwarranted’ and unveil weaknesses in the quality of care, or worse still, herald the risk of harm.

Regulation can support clinical governance.  This is particularly palpable in aged care reform, where new legislation and revised standards shine a spotlight on clinical governance in way that has not been done in the Australian aged care system before.

Many of the provisions introduced by the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Act 2022 will enhance clinical governance in aged care – this is how.

Clinical governance might be considered as being about “how we control, regulate direct or oversee the assessment and management of a person’s health to support optimal outcomes”, where outcomes encompass the person’s “experience of care”.  In the context of palliation, while we cannot alter the outcome, we can certainly aim to enhance a person’s end-of-life experience.

Robust clinical trials drive learning, innovation and hence continuous improvement in evidence-based care.  Not only do clinical trials promote good clinical governance in this way, but good clinical governance must underpin clinical trials. 

Last week (on 15 November 2021) new NDIS Practice Standards (Standards) came into force in relation to severe dysphagia. Under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018 (Cth), the Standards specify minimum requirements regarding the quality of supports and services to be provided by registered NDIS providers (Providers).

In this webinar recording, A/Prof Debora Picone, CEO at Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare, paints a holistic picture of clinical governance across all sectors and explains why Standard 1 is so important. She discusses the cross-sector health and care workforce in the context of clinical governance, highlights the learnings of the review of Standard 1 and provides her key takeaways for health and care workers to pursue safe and quality care.