Understanding the dashboard

Access performance

The Department of Health and Human Services sets targets for access performance that all Victorian public hospitals are expected to either meet or exceed.

Emergency care

Public hospital emergency departments meet the immediate healthcare needs of the community, including treatment of medical emergencies and less urgent cases when alternative care is not available.

The Australasian College of Emergency Medicine has identified five triage categories and defined the desirable time when treatment should commence for patients in each category.

The Government sets targets for hospitals in consultation with hospital staff and clinical groups to encourage achievement of national standards of care. Achievements are then monitored against these targets to encourage hospitals to treat as many patients within the desirable times as possible. In addition to the triage categories, the hospital also monitors:

• 8 hour admits - emergency departments are required to admit patients to a bed within eight hours of being triaged.
• 4 hour non-admits - patients not being admitted are required to be out of the emergency department within four hours of being triaged.

Find out more about patient categories and targets at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Elective surgery

The Government sets targets for public hospitals in relation to elective surgery to ensure hospitals are meeting the needs of elective surgery patients, while still responding to increases in demand for emergency care. Hospital achievement against targets for urgent and semi-urgent elective surgery patients is monitored. Three categories are used throughout Australia to guide the timely treatment of elective surgery patients.

Find out more information about these measures at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Selected quality indicators

Alfred Health have selected other key quality indicators to monitor. Some of these indicators look at readmission rates in key areas, allowing follow-up examination as to why readmission was required and to investigate whether it could have been avoided through changes or additions to the initial care. 

The quality indictators relating to readmission include:

• Emergency readmission of patients - measures emergency readmissions of patients who had a multi-day discharge within the last 28 days. 
• Psychiatric readmission of patients - measures psychiatric readmissions of patients who had a multi-day psychiatric discharge within the last 28 days.
• Failed same day elective patients - measures surgical or medical patients who are booked for a day case, however end up staying for one or more nights.

Other quality indicators measure key areas of patient care. These include: 

• Riskman - this program measures days since last confirmed extreme event. Extreme or "sentinel" events are adverse events that result in harm to a patient.
• ICU central line infections - our Target Zero campaign aims for zero tolerance on healthcare associated infections. Line infections are one such measure in this program.

Glossary

HIPs - Hospital Initiated Postponements (in reference to elective surgery).

Triage - the process of prioritising patients based on the severity of their condition.