Access a range of articles and resources written by clinical governance experts and search our carefully curated list of safety and quality journal articles and reports.
AICG articles, resources and curated journals and reports are available to all AICG members. Members must be logged in, in order to access all content. Users who are not AICG members will only be able to access publicly available articles.
Aishwarya Aswath was 7 years old when her parents took her to the Perth Children’s Hospital on 3 April 2021, with a range of symptoms including diarrhoea, vomiting and fever. Despite being triaged as a Category 4 and therefore ‘semi-urgent’, Aishwarya rapidly deteriorated into cardiac arrest and died as a result of undiagnosed Group A Streptococcal sepsis.
Pain is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, and chronic pain can rarely be eliminated. While pain can be nociceptive or neuropathic in nature – relatable to an identifiable organic cause – a third category of pain, described as ‘nociplastic’, is less well defined, and treatment particularly challenging.
Clinical governance has an important role in primary care, but primary care also has an important role in clinical governance.
The concept of candour is not new. Being candid means being honest, which includes ‘complete openness and transparency.’ Exercising candour in healthcare is challenging for multiple reasons.
-sml.jpg)
Medical error remains rife. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported 26,995 potentially avoidable deaths in 2020 among people under the age of 75 in Australia. While this ‘age-standardised’ rate has been the lowest reported in 10 years, there is clearly room for improvement.
Authentic ‘person-centred’ care involves truly understanding a person’s preferences, wishes and values. But what if that person is no longer able to decide what they want, or communicate this? In Australia, most states and territories (with the exception of NSW and Tasmania) have enacted legislation to support the creation of, and reliance on, advance care directives (also known by other names, such as advance care plans).
‘Successful integration is the planning, commissioning and delivery of co-ordinated, joined up and seamless services to support people to live healthy, independent and dignified lives and which improves outcomes for the population as a whole. Everyone should receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.’
-sml.jpg)
Integrated care addresses the problem of care fragmentation, and instead supports continuity. It is person-centred because it enhances the patient experience through improved coordination of care. Integrated care has been broadly described as an ‘organising principle for care delivery with the aim of achieving improved patient care through better coordination of services provided’ – hence the need for systems thinking.
-sml.jpg)
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.
Prof Andrew Wilson walks us through and reflects on some of the clinical governance challenges that emerged and were observed during peak COVID times. What areas were impacted, is there an indication of recovery, and what does it mean for the future of clinical governance?
