Effective patient safety measures include certification against safe practice standards, the establishment of a governance (monitoring) and credentialing system and open incident reporting and review are all hallmarks of patient focused care.
Healthe Care is proud to be accredited against both national health standards and international best practice business standards. This ensures an organisation wide focus on quality and excellence.
Healthe Care undertakes certification against the following standards:
Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards. The standards protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of health service provision. They provide a quality assurance mechanism that tests whether relevant systems are in pace to ensure that expected standards of safety and quality are met.
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Waratah Private Hospital implements infection prevention and control practices to maintain a safe environment for everyone.
Our team adheres to an infection prevention and control program involving early identification of individuals presenting with, or with risk factors for, infection or colonisation. This may be in relation to an organism of local, national or global significance, where the need to put in place appropriate measures that prevent the spread of the infectious agent to other individuals, is essential.
We strongly recommend that family or friends who are unwell avoid visiting patients while they are in hospital.
Waratah Private Hospital regularly assesses how often staff clean their hands in accordance with the National Hand Hygiene Initiative’s Five Moments of Hand Hygiene, implemented across all states. These 5 moments of hand hygiene have been identified as the critical times when hand hygiene should be performed by staff and visitors. The current benchmark is 80% and we are pleased to be above that target.
Medication Safety is paramount at Waratah Private Hospital to reduce the risk of harm to our patients. Waratah Private Hospital monitors and reviews all medication incidents so that changes and improvements can be made to how we do things and prevent re-occurrence.
We follow the 7 Rights of Administration: – The Right Person – The Right Documentation and clinical context – The Right Drug – The Right Dose – The Right Date/Time – The Right Route – The Right to Uninterrupted Medication Administration.
The risk of falling can greatly increase when admitted to hospital. While some falls cause no injuries, others can cause serious harm. Falls can also result in people fearing further falls and make it harder for people to stay independent.
Preventing falls is a priority for us, so we assess all of our patients on admission and throughout their stay to identify those patients who are at risk of falling. We then provide these patients with a range of falls prevention and harm minimisation strategies whilst in hospital.
At Waratah Private Hospital, we document and investigate every fall including near misses and take action to reduce the number of falls that occur.
A pressure injury is a wound or reddened area of skin caused by prolonged pressure on the skin. To prevent a pressure injury whilst in hospital it is important to regularly change position in bed and walk or move around as much as possible. All patients admitted to Waratah Private Hospital are assessed on admission and at regular intervals during their stay to ensure that pressure injuries prevention is occurring.
Waratah Private Hospital collects and reviews statistics on patients who have an unplanned re-admission to hospital within 28 days of discharge or have an unplanned return to theatre during their stay. All these cases are reviewed as part of our quality and risk meetings to identify causes that may be preventable which enables us to continually improve and provide the best possible care. We are pleased to report that our statistics compared to the national average is low.
At Healthe Care we strive for an environment which fosters excellence in clinical care. Accordingly, our Clinical Governance framework ensures our hospitals are accountable for the quality of our service and the standards of care provided. Processes and best practice are promoted and reviewed through the Medical Advisory Committees (MAC) at each of our hospitals. These committees support us and our practitioners holding clinical performance standards.
Each MAC acts as a consultative and advisory body to the hospital’s Regional CEO, supporting the Regional CEO in overseeing medical and clinical standards within the hospital by ensuring an environment of best practice and a positive workplace culture that reflects the mission and values of Healthe Care.
The MACs are the formal organisation structure through which the collective views of the credentialed medical practitioners of the hospital shall be formulated and communicated.
Clinical Governance also includes regular reviews of clinical and health data. Mortality and morbidity reviews are held quarterly.
Each hospital operates a clinical governance committee with meetings which cover Health and Safety; Infection Prevention and Control; and Quality and Risk. Each clinical governance committee has a documented Terms of Reference.
Investing in systems and facilities that ensure quality patient-focused care is one of Healthe Care’s core strategies. The credentialing process and granting of clinical privileges is a key part of that commitment and is the basis of our relationship with medical practitioners.
To assist in achieving these aims, Healthe Care requires all medical practitioners who use its facilities to hold clinical privileges, which includes having an approved area of practice specific to the hospital at which they practice. This applies to career medical officers through to specialists.
The purpose of granting clinical privileges and agreeing an approved area of practice is to ensure safe practice for medical practitioners and their patients.
This means: