Page 948 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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ACT Health accreditation—Ministerial statement, 3 May 2007.
I ask leave of the Assembly to make a ministerial statement concerning ACT Health accreditation by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards.
Leave granted.
MS GALLAGHER: I rise today to inform the members of the Assembly of welcome news that ACT Health has been accredited by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards. The ACHS has accredited all parts of ACT Health, covering community health, mental health, the Canberra Hospital and the corporate office, for a two-year period.
This is the first time that ACT Health has been fully accredited in this way. Two-year accreditation is the maximum period of accreditation that could have been awarded to ACT Health in light of the decision to move to portfolio-wide accreditation in 2008. An organisation that is awarded accreditation has reached a high level of achievement. It also indicates to the community that ACHS believe ACT Health is striving for best practice, has a quality improvement culture and is committed to quality improvement management systems being in place. Accreditation also indicates that ACHS believe that ACT Health has a focus on consumer and patient needs and safety.
The evaluation and quality improvement, EQuIP, accreditation system is a four-year voluntary membership program that provides a framework for establishing and maintaining quality care and services in health care organisations. Within the four-year ACHS quality program there are self-assessments, period reviews and comprehensive organisation-wide surveys. Both organisation-wide surveys and period reviews involve health professionals who are professionally trained surveyors to assess the performance of a health care organisation against the standards of ACHS accreditation framework.
The EquIP 3 program evaluated organisations against five functions: continuum of care, leadership and management, information management, human resource management and safe practice and environment. In 2005 ACT Health made the decision to move to portfolio-wide accreditation, rather than the previous approach which involved different parts of ACT Health being accredited separately. The most recent results are part of this move to portfolio-wide accreditation.
In 2006 all divisions and streams in ACT Health either went to a periodic review, which was for the Canberra Hospital, community health including the Capital Region Cancer Service, and the Aged Care and Rehabilitation Service, or an alignment survey, which was for corporate and mental health services, in accordance with EQuIP 3. A periodic review requires all mandatory accreditation criteria and recommendations from previous surveys to be addressed. An alignment survey is an entry process to the ACHS accreditation program and forms preparation for the first full portfolio-wide accreditation process which starts later this year.
Corporate, community health, mental health and the Canberra Hospital met all 14 mandatory accreditation criteria at the required minimum level of moderate
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