Clinical ICT Systems in the Victorian Public Health Sector: Message
Ordered to be printed
VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT PRINTER October 2013
PP No 265, Session 2010–13
Clinical ICT Systems in the Victorian Public Health Sector
Body
This audit reported on the progress of the implementation of clinical ICT systems in the Victorian public health sector.
Appendix A. Audit Act 1994 section 16—submissions and comments
Introduction
In accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 a copy of this report was provided to the Department of Health and the audited hospitals with a request for submissions or comments.
The submission and comments provided are not subject to audit nor the evidentiary standards required to reach an audit conclusion. Responsibility for the accuracy, fairness and balance of those comments rests solely with the agency head.
Responses were received as follows:
3 Supporting systems
At a glance
Background
Policies and training help health services to embed infection prevention and control systems into daily activities. The Department of Health (the department) can support health services by articulating targeted and strategic priorities to reduce infections.
2 Patient outcomes and performance management
At a glance
Background
Analysis of patient outcomes data can help inform practice or system change to prevent more infections. Health services and the Department of Health (the department) must manage infection prevention and control performance to achieve better outcomes for patients.
1 Background
1.1 Introduction
Community-acquired infections and healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are the most common complication affecting hospital patients. Community-acquired infections are those that people bring with them into hospital. HAIs are acquired or identified during hospital care. Infections can also appear after patient discharge and depending on the severity can require re-admission for further treatment.
Recommendations
That the Department of Health:
- uses the infection control data it collects to inform future strategy on infection control
- identifies and appropriately manages health services with persistent or recurring poor infection control performance.
That health services:
- develop and implement targeted strategies to address persistent underperformance in hand hygiene compliance among relevant healthcare worker groups.
That the Department of Health:
Findings
Patient outcomes and performance management
Infection control outcome data over the past decade show improvements against some, but not all, indicators. However, the department may not be aware of all areas in need of improvement because it does not analyse the infection data it collects adequately.
Conclusions
The Victorian health system is generally effective at managing and reducing infection rates, and has well developed systems and processes to monitor and report infections in public hospitals. However, there is variation in hand hygiene compliance rates among healthcare worker groups, and heart bypass surgery infection rates have seen no improvement over 10 years.
Audit summary
Infections are the most common complication affecting hospital patients. People can bring infections acquired in the community with them into hospital, or they can acquire an infection during their hospital stay—known as healthcare-associated infections (HAI). Infections prolong hospital stays, increase costs and can cause significant harm to patients, some of whom die as a result.