Quality and Safety in Health Care

• • Issues/factors that influence, or are influenced by, the emergence of the quality and safety movement
  • Current best practice for clinical workforce
  • Qualifications, skills and approach of managers and clinical workforce
  • Integrated governance systems to manage patient safety and quality risks (National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards)
  • Improving safety and quality systems
  • Patient rights and engagement in ethical care

In order to enrol in this subject, you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:

Core

• ACU-HPE-GCE-2021
• ACU-HAD-GCE-2021
• ACU-LMH-MAS-2021

Elective

• ACU-MPH-MAS-2021
• ACU-GHA-MAS-2021

Special requirements

No special requirements

Adverse events and poor quality care can have a significant impact on health care costs and health system sustainability. This subject is essential for future leaders in health care who need to have specialised knowledge and skill in applying effective quality measures in a digital environment to administer culturally safe health services across a variety of healthcare contexts.

In this subject, students will explore the emergence of the quality movement and accreditation and safety standards that have been progressively driven by consumer expectations around safe, quality care, in preparing to become effective health care administrators. This foundational knowledge is required to enable interpretation and evaluation of paper based and digitally supported, quality and safety processes and to develop a repertoire of quality improvement tools used to create strategies that improve quality and safety processes.

The aim of this subject is to ensure that students can effectively promote quality and safety leading to better health outcomes as well as cost efficiencies in a variety of health care settings. Managing health care in this way ensures that safe, quality care is a transformative process of continuous improvement that respects the dignity of individuals and contributes to the common good. 

In order to pass this unit, students are expected to submit three graded assessment tasks. In addition, students must achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across all assessments. In order to reward students for engagement and performance, a final graded result will be awarded. The assessment strategy used allows for the progressive development of knowledge and skills relevant to quality and safety in health care which are necessary for the student to be able to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes To become effective in improving safety and quality in healthcare, the student must first develop comprehensive knowledge of factors that impact on quality and safety through a reflective writing process. Reflective, foundational knowledge is further developed through collaboration with peers in an online seminar presentation that supports the interpretation and evaluation of quality and safety processes enabling the student to develop a repertoire of quality improvement tools. The application of quality improvement tools is necessary for the student to create strategies that transform quality and safety processes in a variety of health care settings which will be demonstrated in a final essay/proposal or report.

• Discussion Forum participation and individually submitted brief Quality Assessment Report (20%)
• ePoster (30%)
• Essay / Proposal / Report (50%)