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Health is a broad concept, influenced by a range of determinants – psycho-social, environmental, cultural, spiritual (for example). Any care or services can impact a person’s health.  Therefore, the concept of clinical governance (which aspires to achieve optimal health outcomes - and therefore quality of living) is as relevant to home care as it is to residential aged care, despite different contexts and priorities. This article dives into building a clinical governance framework that takes direction from the Revised Aged Care Quality Standards (Strengthened Quality Standards), as it relates to aged and home care.

The Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) have released its latest ROSA Outcome Monitoring System (OMS) report, a quality and safety monitoring and benchmarking system designed to promote quality improvement, transparency, and accountability for the aged care sector.

This systematic review aims to evaluate the impact of accreditation on quality improvement in healthcare services and to understand the contextual factors influencing its implementation.

Correct identification of patients has been recognised as a critical safety issue for many years. A recent report from the UK’s Health Services Safety Investigation Body (HSSIB), compiles evidence from various investigations and sources to explore the factors contributing to patient misidentification in healthcare. The report defines 'positive patient identification' as the accurate identification of a patient to ensure they receive the correct care. Whereas, 'patient misidentification' occurs when a patient is wrongly identified as someone else, leading to potential harm from incorrect or missed treatment.

Health and social care standards have been widely adopted as a quality improvement intervention. Standards are typically made up of evidence-based statements that describe high-quality care as an outcome or process of care delivery. They involve stakeholders at multiple levels and multiple activities across diverse services. It’s not difficult to see why many problems challenge effective implementation. Getting people on board is hard. Staff see standards as ‘extra work’. Quality managers and clinicians may be at odds, both with different agendas. Line managers may see accreditation as the quality manager’s job, rather than as part of their responsibility for meeting standards of care. Everyone may be doing their best, but there are many barriers to success.

There are many documented benefits of accreditation. These include driving the establishment of organisational structures and processes, promotion of a quality and safety culture, and improvement in care.  Organisational benefits in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and integration of health services, innovation, support for evidence-based decision-making, and increased stakeholder engagement, have also been discussed in the literature. 

Access important websites relating to safety, quality and regulatory standards.

The AICG community can easily access important websites relative to safety, quality and regulatory healthcare standards. Browse our carefully curated list of websites below. 

Governing bodies play a critical role in aged care – they set the direction for, and culture of, the organisation, directly influencing the safety and quality of care provided to consumers.

Variations in the way care is accessed or delivered, and in clinical outcomes, can be highly informative. It may be that such variations are warranted or expected (for example, the surge in telehealth at the outset of the pandemic, or in the number of infection-related deaths) or may reflect person-centredness and individual choice. However sometimes variations may be ‘unwarranted’ and unveil weaknesses in the quality of care, or worse still, herald the risk of harm.

Regulation can support clinical governance.  This is particularly palpable in aged care reform, where new legislation and revised standards shine a spotlight on clinical governance in way that has not been done in the Australian aged care system before.

Many of the provisions introduced by the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Act 2022 will enhance clinical governance in aged care – this is how.