Consumer Quality and Safety Conversations for Impact

Initiative Type
System Improvement
Status
Deliver
Added
Last updated

Summary

Engaging with consumers to be actively involved with the composition of quality and safety performance measures is a relatively unexplored area in Queensland Health. There is an assumption that consumers have limited understanding of quality and safety performance measures and perhaps some misconceptions about this facet of a consumer’s healthcare. This project explores the current understanding of PAH consumers in relation to public reporting of quality and safety performance measures. 

Consumers are in a unique position to influence future publicly reported quality and safety performance measures, in ways are meaningful and accessible to consumers more broadly.

Key dates
Dec 2017
Dec 2018
Implementation sites
Princess Alexandra Hospital
Partnerships
Clinical Excellence Queensland

Aim

  • Determine what quality and safety measures consumers find valuable to review.
  • Determine in what format the consumer would like this quality and safety data.
  • Understand the reporting medium/s which consumers would most likely access the quality and safety reports.

Benefits

  • Ensures all stakeholders are aware of the project and understand the impacts, benefits and outcomes of their engagement.
  • Enhances the engagement of stakeholders in the progression of the Consumer Quality and Safety Information for Impact project.

Background

This project aims to explore the increasing requirement for healthcare organisations to involve consumers in decision making. Standard two (Partnering with Consumers) of the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standard, recommends that organisations partner with consumers and provide information on quality and safety performance that is meaningful and relevant to the consumers and in a format that can be understood and interpreted independently.   

Growing bodies of research indicate the importance of presenting information to consumers in meaningful ways, as this can have an impact on how it is interpreted and how it is subconsciously biased in decision making.

Exploring the notion that health care consumers may not be utilising comparative health information reports because of their complexity, is the foundation of this project.

Solutions Implemented

  • A literature review examining the evidence based findings of quality and safety performance measures, format, and reporting medium that consumers prefer.
  • Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) submission and ethics approval to obtain consumer feedback.
  • Diagnostic Report that outlines the performance measures that are meaningful to consumers, format and reporting mediums preferred by consumers.
  • Development of specifications for the suite of quality and safety indicators determined in Phase 1.
  • Development of infographics that can display quality and safety indicators in a user-friendly format that meets consumer needs.

Evaluation and Results

The review of the literature validates the immense importance of healthcare performance measurement, benchmarking and public reporting in Australia and internationally. It indicates that there is a need to learn more about current practice and how to achieve greater national collaboration, effectiveness, and consistency in the selection and development of effective indicators that aim to enable performance improvement.

The literature also supports the importance, and indeed the expectation, that such performance results be reported publicly to all stakeholders, including not just funders and decision-makers, but users of the healthcare system. This not only means sharing information, but developing indicators and co-designing reporting methods with the perspectives of healthcare consumers in mind, and designing communication approaches that facilitates understanding, engagement, and effective use of results.

References

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Key contact

Michelle Padget
Nurse Unit Manager / CEQ Improvement Fellow
Princess Alexandra Hospital
(07) 3176 8058
Michelle.Padget@health.qld.gov.au