As the only body in Australia representing the public healthcare sector, the AHHA has a key interest in ensuring that any standards applied to hospitals and health services reflect the best functioning of those services. Any data collection and monitoring must serve to improve healthcare delivery without adding burden to the system and staff within facilities, particularly where many are already undertaking these tasks for other accreditation and funding requirements.
The AHHA has long pushed for national standards to ensure that we can measure and compare outcomes, and ultimately drive improvement of the system and professionals working within it. The AHHA welcomes the key standards contained in the proposed framework, but has some comments and questions about the details of the standards and elements.