Page 4228 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2005
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For those members who are not familiar with this, APGAR scores are a simple way of assessing a baby’s health immediately after birth by scoring points for heart rate, breathing, skin colour, tone and the baby’s reactions on five criteria—appearance or colouring, heart rate, responsiveness to stimuli, muscle tone and respiration.
The Canberra Hospital has reviewed the assessment protocol for ongoing assessment of performance concerning APGAR scores and has introduced a four-tiered approach to assessing our performance in relation to APGAR scores that includes weekly audit meetings, monthly morbidity and mortality meetings, six-monthly benchmarking of Australian Council of Healthcare Standards indicators, and annual Women’s Hospitals Australasia benchmarking. Recommendation 2 states:
The Canberra Hospital Obstetrics Unit reviews, in the light of the findings of conclusions in this report, its policy and clinical practice guidelines on the use of Prostin.
Recommendation 3 states:
The Canberra Hospital Obstetrics Unit reviews, in the light of the findings and conclusions in this report, its policy and clinical practice guidelines on the use of Syntocinon.
The Canberra Hospital has had policies for the use of Prostin since 1995 and Syntocinon since 1993. The Canberra Hospital have reviewed their policies regularly and have decided, in response to the report, to send the policies and clinical practice guidelines relating to the use of Prostin and Syntocinon to the maternity and gynaecology clinical management meeting for review.
In response to recommendation 4, that “ACT Health considers the establishment of a territory-wide system for the clinical audit and review of obstetric care”, ACT Health has established the ACT Health Clinical Audit Committee as the territory-wide system for clinical audit and review of all health care. The ACT Health Clinical Audit Committee conducts clinical reviews whereby staff reflect upon adverse events and identify opportunities for improvement. The other two recommendations made by the commissioner will be referred for action to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Medical Board of the ACT, as requested by the commissioner.
I welcome the commissioner’s report, as it reassures the Canberra community that there was, and is, no issue of public safety in the obstetric service at the Canberra Hospital, and that the obstetrics service at the Canberra Hospital delivers a high quality of care to Canberra women and their children. Health care consumers have the right to expect nothing less than the very best that can be delivered.
Undeniably, all health care systems have unexpected adverse events that can cause patient harm. ACT Health is actively undertaking multiple initiatives to improve patient safety and the quality of care and services. ACT Health, under this government, has taken huge steps forward in establishing a clinical governance framework and providing explicit lines of accountability and responsibility, including specific committees to monitor clinical audit processes.
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