Safety in Hospitals the Core Concern

Dr Yong said the AMA's new Position Statement on Quality and Safety in Public Hospitals, released today, should help inform the debate about federal/state relations on health.

"Whether hospitals are run federally or by individual State Governments, continual improvements to safety and quality must remain the core focus," Dr Yong said.

"It's imperative that doctors and nurses feel confident to speak up when safety breaches or mistakes occur.

"Clinicians need to know that reporting an adverse event will lead to reviewing and improving the system that caused the error. It will hopefully move people away from the culture of finger-pointing and persecution of whistle-blowers."

Reform to faulty processes should occur from the ground up, Dr Yong said.

"Medical staff - not hospital administrators - are the people who see every day what works and what doesn't work, so it makes sense to listen to them and use their suggestions to improve management," Dr Yong said.

"It's also logical that when something is working very well to improve safety and quality for patients in one hospital, that process should be shared with other hospitals to benefit patients around the nation."

Research by the World Health Organisation shows that hospitals are at their safest and most effective when they are filled to no more than 85 per cent of capacity.

"If a hospital is running at full steam, not only are resources stretched to the limit, but there's also no room to take in additional patients - a major cause of so-called access block in emergency departments," Dr Yong said.

"The AMA is calling for increased resources to be devoted to ensuring that hospitals are able to keep enough beds free to run at the best possible level of safety and quality."

The full Position Statement on Quality and Safety in Public Hospitals can be viewed here.