$2m crusade targets treatment mistakes
Clara Pirani, Medical reporter
Australian, August 25, 2007
MEDIBANK Private is spending $2 million on measures to reduce medication errors and prevent adverse events in almost 60 private hospitals.
The projects were developed to prevent falls, reduce hospital-acquired infections and address adverse events in an attempt to improve patient care -- and cut the cost of treating patients requiring ongoing care because something went wrong while they were in hospital.
"The amount of money we spend on these incentives is hopefully only a small portion of costs that we save," Medibank Private managing director George Savvides. "One figure that has been around suggests that about $2 billion is wasted on adverse events from errors, infection and readmissions. These projects will ensure better health outcomes for all patients."
Private hospitals are invited to develop programs they believe will improve patient safety and apply to Medibank Private for funding to trial them.
Medibank Private is currently reviewing results of the first initiatives trialled in 35 hospitals last year.
"We see this as a long-term initiative that will benefit the hospital operator and patients," Savvides said.
The incentive scheme, now in its second year, attracted a 50 per cent increase in applications from last year, with 120 hospitals applying.
Last year St Vincent and Mercy Private Hospital in Victoria was granted $30,000 to run a program aimed at reducing adverse medication errors.
Chief executive Martin Day says the program provided hospital staff with evidence of what measure could reduce medication errors and limit adverse reactions.
"The medication safety project looked at ways to identify patients who were at risk of exposure to a medication error. That might be patients with some form of dementia, or patients who took a large number of medications for various conditions."
Day says a series of measures was trialled, including the use of electronic prescribing software and barcoding patients to make sure they were give the correct medication.
"The medication safety program has been complemented and implemented and we have seen improvements. Patients were given a wrist band with a barcode that could be swiped to link them to their medication charts, to match them to their medication.
"We also looked at electronic prescribing software and went around to other hospitals that had implemented this to find the best system that would allow doctors to electronically prescribe medications."
Savvides says private health funds must play a role in improving healthcare and reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions.
"Australia has some of the best quality of hospital care in the world, but my point is there is always room for improvement, and innovation should be supported -- which is exactly where private health funds can play a fundamental role in change.
"Let's encourage these teams to implement these programs and showcase the results. The ones that work well, we'll share among all hospitals around the country."
Savvides believes Australia will eventually develop and adopt national standards for assessing the quality of hospital healthcare.
"The states have their own data collection systems but there are moves afoot to set up a national recording program."
Day says previous efforts to improve patient care in hospitals were inconsistent, and not always reviewed to see which measures worked.
"Some hospitals would say `we're all doing this', but it's important to have these programs co-ordinated, monitored and assessed and the results published.
"Hospitals cannot function in isolation. We should be getting consistency across all hospitals in Australia, public and private."
Growing patient demands for better care and the increasing cost of healthcare would force hospitals to address implement changes to reduce medical errors, he said.
"All of this has been overdue in Australia. Medical indemnity insurance is going through the roof, so there had to be a circuit-breaker somewhere. The cost of healthcare, of just these people being readmitted, is costing health funds a lot of money and they need to keep premiums under control. In the US they realised a 1000 lives could be saved by implementing a range of safety initiatives."
A report in May found that in Queensland hospitals last financial year there were 33,000 instances where patient safety was put at risk, and six cases in which surgery was performed on the wrong patient or body part.
Day says greater transparency would allow even smaller hospitals to improve healthcare, without the expense of trialling systems that were ineffective.
"All hospitals should have an open book on their policy initiatives, and allow mentoring of hospitals and allow the publication of results and projects," Day says. "That way hospitals that don't have the resources to test these projects and initiatives can take a look at the results and implement them."
