Royal North Shore Hospital Inquiry - Did It Make A Difference? Australia
Two articles in the latest Medical Journal of Australia present views on the outcomes of the RNSH inquiry, which was initiated in response to the publicity and complaints about a patient who had a miscarriage in the toilets of the RNSH emergency waiting area.
Dr Anthony Joseph and Dr Stephen Hunyor, both specialists working at RNSH who gave evidence at the inquiry, said clinicians at the hospital were supportive of the inquiry and hoped that it would address a number of long-term issues.
However, they added, many were disappointed with the recommendations, which were considered too broad and lacking in specific details to affect any significant improvements in the hospital's major administrative and budgetary issues.
The authors discussed a number of possible solutions, including the proposed federal takeover of public hospitals, rationalisation of hospitals providing acute medical or surgical care, and hospital performance 'scorecards'.
"Health Ministers and their departments should seek advice and implement recommendations from clinicans who are clinically active rather than from bureaucrats who have little or no clinical experience and motivated by concerns related to meeting budget targets," Dr Joseph said.
In a related editorial, Ms Joanne Travaglia and her co-authors from the Centre for Clinical Governance Research at The University of New South Wales said that, too often, patient safety inquiries do not effect real change.
"Explaining why things went wrong seems to be the underlying purpose of inquiries. Identifying solutions to these problems and undertaking health care reform that results in improved quality of patient care - in other words, actively learning from what occurred - is a separate and undoubtedly more difficult issue," she said.
"Too often, these fundamentally important tasks are left untouched by the ever-growing number of inquiries."
The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.
The original articles can be viewed online after the embargo date at http://www.mja.com.au.
Australian Medical Association
Royal North Shore Spitalul anchetã - a fãcut-o face diferenta? Australia - Royal North Shore Hospital Inquiry - Did It Make A Difference? Australia - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate