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HOTLINKS
Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality
Patient Safety, Quality & Innovation team | Te Pokapū Haumarie Turoro – Ratonga Whai Kounga
At Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora in Whanganui (Health NZ), our focus is to provide quality, safe care to the population we serve. Health NZ Whanganui’s Patient Safety, Quality & Innovation (PSQI) team supports clinicians to provide safe care by providing expertise and experience to ensure patient harm is managed and that, systems and processes to support safe care delivery are in place.
The functions of PSQI includes:
- Quality improvement activities, initiatives and auditing
- Infection prevention and control
- Customer relations and feedback management
- Risk and incident management
- Certification and legislative compliance
- Education and training in quality improvement
- Consumer engagement and whãnau voice
- VIP
- Health and safety
- ACC-clinical review
- Manual handling
ACC clinical review
PSQI liaise with ACC to ensure that all ACC patients receive the care and support needed in a timely manner.
Document management
All policies, procedures and guidelines are reviewed for accuracy and that they are evidence-based. The controlled document administrator ensures that all documents are current, and removes expired documents as notified.
Certification
PSQI monitor that the hospital meets all legislated requirements, particularly those covered by Nga Paerewa Health and disability services standards and others issued by standards NZ that are relevant to our services.
PSQI also assist with accreditation and audit of various department to meet national and international requirements.
Cgov
Cgov is our risk, incident and consumer feedback management system. It is used to capture risks, incidents, consumer feedback, quality improvement, audits and hazards. The link to Cgov is available and staff can also link through to the Cgov app from the start menu and by viewing all apps in Office 365. You will need to be on Microsoft Edge or Chrome for Cgov to work. Training is available on request.
Consumer relations
Health NZ Whanganui values patient/consumer feedback, whether it is positive, negative or simply a suggestion. We use many methods for gathering patient feedback but one of the most useful tools is the insight and information we gain from dealing with patient complaints.
Patients have rights when accessing health or disability services which are described in the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights.
These service standards are what any one of us would expect if we were accessing a health or disability service in New Zealand. If you feel that one or more of your rights have been breached, you may make a complaint.
If you make a complain the Health NZ Whanganui customer relations and complaints coordinator will listen to your concerns, record the details and initiate a complaint investigation. Our complaints management process will be explained to you and you will be kept informed on the progress of your complaint.
Staff can lodge feedback using Cgov.
Health and Safety
Health NZ Whanganui is committed to providing and maintaining a safe environment for all our employees, patients, and visitors. Our robust programmes enable us to identify and remedy/minimise hazards. We encourage visitors and patients to advise our staff if they see or experience a hazard that needs to be remedied.
Health Quality and Safety Commission (HQSC) projects
PSQI lead several HQSC projects including:
- Mental Health Zero Seclusionand Connecting Care
- Kōrero Mai
- Shared goals of care/ serious illness conversation guide
- Anticoagulant stewardship
PSQI also collate data for the Quality Safety Markers and report this to HQSC for National benchmarking.
Incident management
“When things go wrong for patients and patient harm occurs, or when things were at risk of going wrong”
Health NZ Whanganui strives to provide safe care, and, for the majority of patients, this does occur. However, sadly, there are times when the care does not meet the patient/family expectations and a patient is harmed in our care. Our hospital is no different to other hospitals, nationally or internationally, in this regard and is committed to reducing preventable patient harm. All incidents are taken seriously and are investigated to understand what happened, why it happened and to make a plan to address the findings.
To support this approach, Health NZ Whanganui has developed systems and processes to enable electronic reporting of all incidents, investigation of all incidents and feedback to the patient, their families and to staff.
The process of feedback to the patient and their family after a serious harm incident is called ‘open disclosure’. This is offered to all patients and their families with a copy of the report and the findings.
Infection prevention & control
Infection is one of the five areas of high harm - nationally and internationally. With this in mind, Health NZ Whanganui developed a robust infection control programme focusing on hand hygiene, hospital-acquired surgical site infections, antibiotic use and responding to outbreaks of infection within our community.
Hand hygiene is the most effective way to prevent the spread of infection. As staff, visitor or patient, you can play a key role in supporting the hospital to remain infection free by ensuring your hands are washed when entering the hospital.
Hospital-acquired infections are considered patient harm. When they do occur, we follow up to ensure we understand the cause and how we may be able to minimise occurrences in the future. There is a ‘real time’ hospital infection surveillance programme in place for patients having surgery. Training in infection control practices is provided to all staff to maintain knowledge and to support safe practice.
More information about hand hygiene, in general, can be found at the Hand Hygiene New Zealand website: (http://www.handhygiene.org.nz)
Manual Handling
Health NZ Whanganui strives to provide safe care for patients and protect our staff from injury. Education is provided to staff on appropriate equipment and manual handling techniques.
Police & coroner liaison
Health NZ Whanganui recognises that patient’s health information is sensitive and must be handled with the utmost care.
This role ensures that the judicial services and Health NZ Whanganui assist each other in fulfilling their obligations. Staff are supported with providing statements to the police for criminal matters and the police support Health NZ Whanganui staff when dealing with aggression and criminal events. The police can request copies of patient’s records but may require a formal statement using this template. Staff are to list their full name and qualifications and describe their involvement in the patient’s care paying attention to any injuries sustained, the assessment undertaken, and the treatment given. Any medical abbreviations or terms are simplified so that those lay people attending court can understand the statement. If staff need any assistance, please contact the clinical quality and risk advisor.
Research
All research must meet organisational, professional, legal and ethical standards. The PSQI research advisor ensures that the correct documentation is provided, and that organisational approval is obtained.
Risk management
Health NZ Whanganui has an obligation to patients, staff, public and the Ministry of Health to manage risk effectively.
PSQI monitors compliance with Australian/New Zealand Standard [AS/NZS ISO 31000: 2009] where appropriate, and is supported by the risk management procedure to ensure all relevant parties:
- understand actual and perceived risks within the organisation that could impede the achievement of the organisation’s strategic and operational objectives as defined in the Annual and Regional Plans.
- understand their legal obligation to comply with legislation or contracts
- identify, assess, prioritise, manage and monitor risks in a manner that complies with Health NZ Whanganui legal obligations, policies and procedures.
VIP/child protection
Health NZ Whanganui Family Violence Intervention team aims to prevent intentional injuries to children and adults in the Whanganui district. Please refer to the Family Violence Intervention page
