VHIMS Project Objectives

Page contents: Project Goal | Project Objectives | Intended benefits | Definitions

Project Goal

"To implement a systematic approach for reporting clinical incident, consumer feedback and OH&S data, which will enable statewide multi-level data analysis to support quality improvement initiatives."

Project Objectives

The project objectives have recently been revised following the inclusion of OH&S and Consumer Feedback into the project scope:

1. To develop a state wide, standard methodology for the way incident (see definitions) information is reported within publicly funded health services.
2. To implement a mechanism that enables state wide aggregation, analysis and trend analysis of multi-severity clinical incident (see definitions) data by the department.
3. To establish appropriate mechanisms for department representatives and in-scope health services, to evaluate the clinical incident data, consumer feedback and OH&S incident data to identify trends and share relevant information to better target quality improvements.
4. To work collaboratively with the office of the Health Services Commissioner (HSC), WorkSafe and the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA) to whom health services submit incident data, with the aim of streamlining reporting processes to these organisations.

At this stage, it is envisaged incident that OH&S, incident data for notification to VMIA and Complaints data will be made available, from health services, to WorkSafe Victoria, VMIA and the Health Services Commissioner respectively, so that these entities can evaluate the information reported by health services.

The principles to be followed in development of the final system (see definitions) include:

• The incident reporting data set must accommodate multiple user and business needs
• Incident information obtained will be deidentified and confidential
• Current incident reporting requirements for health services should ideally be streamlined where possible

Following consultations with several DHS program ar22 October, 2008ne the following reporting streams by integrating them into the VHIMS data set and reporting mechanism:

• Sentinel Events, Clinical Risk Management Program
• Serious Transfusion Incidents, Blood Matters Program
• Radiation Safety Incidents, Radiation Safety Program
• Pressure Ulcers Clinical Incident Data Set
• Allegations of Serious Sexual and Physical Assault towards residential aged care clients (New requirement as of 1 July 2007)
• DHS Operations Division, five (5) Regional Offices – Reporting of Category 1 and/or 2 incidents impacting clients of stand alone community health services; and home and community care services (HACC) services including the Royal District Nursing Service

The Nurse Policy Branch requirements for collection of occupational violence in nursing data, has been integrated.

Intended Benefits

• Better understanding of type, frequency and severity of incidents that are occurring within Victorian health services, via an ability to pool data across the state
• The ability for health services to compare their incident information across like organisations
• The ability to use this information to measure the effectiveness of various quality improvement projects that aim to reduce the prevalence of particular incidents
• The ability to use this information to provide justification for new quality improvement initiatives, targeted toward identified problematic areas.
• A reduction in the rate of clinical incidents, through appropriately targeted quality improvement initiatives
• Opportunities to allocate resources normally consumed by incidents toward other areas of patient care where resources are required

Definitions

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