Australian Health Ministers’ Conference – A Good Start?

Late last week the Australian Health Ministers had their fourth meeting since the election of the Rudd Government late in 2007.

The following is the meeting communiqué.

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr08-dept-dept290208.htm

Australian Health Ministers’ Conference Joint Communiqué

Australia's health ministers have agreed on the need for reciprocal public performance reporting and priorities for immediate reform.

PDF printable version of Australian Health Ministers’ Conference Joint Communiqué (PDF 33 KB)

29 February 2008

Today’s breakthrough meeting of Australian Health Ministers agreed on the need for reciprocal public performance reporting, as well as priorities for immediate reform.

For the first time, this will mean the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments have agreed on building and reporting a comprehensive set of performance measures across the entire health system.

For example, this will include hospital performance reporting and measures of access to GPs by region. This will build on existing performance requirements.

Today’s Australian Health Ministers’ Conference also decided on a range of issues that should be included under a new Australian Health Care Agreement.

Those areas will focus on taking pressure off hospitals by keeping people well and avoiding hospital admissions. The key elements of health reform to be dealt with by the AHCA are how to bring together the various aspects of the system to ensure coordination of services to deliver effective and efficient health care.

At the last meeting of AHMC, all Health Ministers agreed that the next AHCA needed to be expanded beyond public hospitals to deliver the major reform that is needed.

Today’s meeting identified the areas for immediate focus by the Health Ministers:

• Improving the experience for people using health services.
• Bringing the different aspects of the system together so that hospitals, ambulatory care, primary health care and care in the community have clear funding, role delineations, paths of engagement and transition and are able to continually improve their use both of the workforce and technology,
• Building new models of care based on the patient experience that specifically improve the speed of response to conditions arising from the ageing population, chronic disease and long-term conditions,
• Focusing the system on prevention.
• Expanding services and support for mothers and young children.
• Better services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
• Building the health workforce we need for the future.
• Developing the next generation of leaders to drive health system reform into the future.

Ministers also discussed national registration, and agreed on the need to take urgent action. Ministers agreed to write to the Prime Minister as Chair of COAG seeking finalisation of the national scheme.

Ministers agreed that today’s decisions will go a long way towards building a more patient-focused health system, with real results for working families. There was a recognition that these decisions were not possible under the previous Commonwealth Government.

----- End Release

I am sure this release is just a brief summary but I am again disappointed that we see no specific mention of Health Information Technology in the communiqué.

It may be that Ms Roxon is waiting for the outcome of the National E-Health Strategy Consultancy which is due to report in 4-5 months time. I hope that is indeed the case.

An interesting find while looking at the Health Ministers site (which can be found here) was the following document which dates from the last months of the Howard Government. Yet more e- Health Strategy Work, that I for one was unaware of, what was going on! I wonder why the lack of publicity?

The National Health Information Management Principle Committee – Strategic Work Plan 2007–08 to 2012–13 is dated 31/07/2007. I wonder why I have not been aware of its existence until a day or so ago – was it only recently released or am I not diligent enough.

The full 42 page document can be found at the following URL.

http://www.ahmac.gov.au/NHIMPC_Strategic_Work_Plan.pdf

The Table of Contents and Key Underlying Points make for fascinating reading

Foreword iii

Overview

Health policy context

The role of information management and information and communications technology (IM&ICT) in health

Where have we come from?

Achievements against the health information development priorities

Current national health IM&ICT governance

A vision for health information management

A strategic work plan

Structure of the strategic work plan

A stronger national approach

Priority 1: Strategic planning and coordination at the national level will help to ensure a high degree of consistency and alignment so as to reduce duplication, wasted effort and expense

Objective 1.1 Strengthen national collaboration on information management by building partnerships across the health sector

Objective 1.2 Promote long-term strategic planning to guide national IM&ICT reform

Better use of health information to improve the quality of the health system

Priority 2: Utilising health information to improve clinical care and to reduce errors

Objective 2.1 Support the development and use of health information to improve the quality of service delivery in care settings

Objective 2.2 Support the use of online, evidence based health information and applications in the clinical workplace to promote quality care and to reduce errors and adverse events

Objective 2.3 Improve the ability to identify, monitor and measure the safety and quality of health care and changes over time

Better health information for consumers

Priority 3: Enhancing the ability of consumers to make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing. Consumers also need to be assured that their personal health care information is protected by appropriate data protection arrangements

Objective 3.1 Increase consumer access to, and understanding of, health information

Objective 3.2 Support the protection of consumer health information

Better outcomes from targeted investment in health information

Priority 4: Enhancing the scope and coverage of health information through research, building on existing data collections, data linkage and better health outcomes monitoring. This includes improving the quality and utility of information collected and addressing any emerging gaps and information needs

Objective 4.1 Increase the availability and use of de-identified health data for research, policy and planning purposes

Objective 4.2 Develop and improve the consistency, quality and use of data collected for performance measurement, benchmarking and quality improvement

Objective 4.3 Support the development of good quality data on the health needs, service usage and health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

Objective 4.4 Support the development of good quality data on the health needs, service usage and health outcomes of vulnerable population groups including the elderly, people with a mental illness, people with a disability and young children

Objective 4.5 Improve the coverage, quality, utilisation and coordination of public health information

Objective 4.6 Strengthen the informatics and information workforce capacity of the health sector to better understand and respond to emerging information needs

Appendix 1

Glossary

Abbreviations

References

----- End TOC.

All that can be said is that is it a pity there was not some concerted action to bring the priorities outlined in July last year to some form of action and implementation. Again we see in Objective 1.2 a pointer to the need for properly scoped Strategic Planning.

Overall from a health information perspective this is not a bad document – albeit a trifle glowing (to say the least) in the achievements to date section! I guess the dead hand of Howard and Abbott just sat on it.

What is really fascinating is the following major implementation component of the strategy.

National Health Performance Committee (NHPC)

1. Develop and maintain a national performance measurement framework for the health system, primarily to support benchmarking for health system improvement and to provide information on national health system performance. (A copy of the Framework is available at: http://www.health.qld.gov.au/nathlthrpt/performance_framework/11381_doc.pdf).

2. Establish and maintain appropriate national performance indicators within the national performance measurement framework.

3. Receive and consider input into the national performance measurement framework and on existing and potential performance indicators.

4. Provide the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference and other national authorities with a comparative analysis and information on national health system performance. (A copy of the most recent report is available at: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/10085

5. Develop and maintain linkages with other relevant national committees.

6. Report progress to the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference and other national authorities on achieving its mission.

The primary objectives of the NHPC endorsed by AHMC are:

Establish and maintain national performance indicators within the national performance measurement framework

Develop and maintain a national performance measurement framework for the health system.

That looks to me very like just what is needed to action the new measurement reporting system Ms Roxon was talking about in the press release. I wonder did Ministers know it was there?

David.