Victorian Auditor-General's Office

1 Background

1.1 Introduction

Timely and reliable patient information is fundamental to the effective planning, management and delivery of clinical healthcare. Advances in ICT are having a profound effect on healthcare, including raising expectations that patient information will be readily available to clinicians in electronic rather than paper formats.

Appendix A. Audit Act 1994 section 16—submissions and comments

Introduction

In accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 a copy of this report was provided to the Department of Health and the audited hospitals with a request for submissions or comments.

The submission and comments provided are not subject to audit nor the evidentiary standards required to reach an audit conclusion. Responsibility for the accuracy, fairness and balance of those comments rests solely with the agency head.

Responses were received as follows:

3 Supporting systems

At a glance

Background

Policies and training help health services to embed infection prevention and control systems into daily activities. The Department of Health (the department) can support health services by articulating targeted and strategic priorities to reduce infections.

1 Background

1.1 Introduction

Community-acquired infections and healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are the most common complication affecting hospital patients. Community-acquired infections are those that people bring with them into hospital. HAIs are acquired or identified during hospital care. Infections can also appear after patient discharge and depending on the severity can require re-admission for further treatment.

Recommendations

That the Department of Health:

  1. uses the infection control data it collects to inform future strategy on infection control
  2. identifies and appropriately manages health services with persistent or recurring poor infection control performance.

That health services:

  1. develop and implement targeted strategies to address persistent underperformance in hand hygiene compliance among relevant healthcare worker groups.

That the Department of Health:

Findings

Patient outcomes and performance management

Infection control outcome data over the past decade show improvements against some, but not all, indicators. However, the department may not be aware of all areas in need of improvement because it does not analyse the infection data it collects adequately.

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