"In the APHA's submission to the National Health & Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC), we called for the development of a data collection that will enable the relative efficiency of different elements of the health care system to be evaluated and reported annually," said Michael Roff, Chief Executive Officer of APHA.
"Private hospitals are already required to report a wide range of data to Commonwealth, State and Territory government agencies, health insurance companies and quality accreditation bodies. A national reporting framework must replace this wasteful series of requirements."
In order to foster this, APHA recently wrote to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare to announce that it would fund an independent national safety and quality data collection, analysis and reporting process for private hospitals across Australia.
The Private Hospitals Safety and Quality Data Collection will enable ongoing analysis and feedback to participating hospitals. Aggregated data will be provided to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) via its Private Hospital Sector Committee (PHSC).
"Through the APHA Safety and Quality Committee, we have identified an initial core suite of safety and quality indicators that will be collected and reported nationally by private hospitals," continued Roff.
"This APHA initiative is a step forward in improving the safety and quality of healthcare in Australia and we look forward to the support and assistance of the Government in the development of the collection," concluded Roff.
