Inform My Care

Consultation was undertaken with a wide range of stakeholders over the period of October 2018 to January 2019 to seek input into the type of content that would be presented on the Inform My Care website. Stakeholders included consumers, clinicians, hospital administrators, the Primary Health Networks, Private Insurers and industry stakeholders.

Initial consultation with consumers occurred from October to December 2018 to understand what information about hospitals in Queensland they would find useful. In partnership with Health Consumers Queensland, nine Kitchen Table discussions with 69 participants and 12 Focus Groups with 80 participants were held with consumers across Queensland.

During December 2018 and January 2019, the project concentrated its consultative efforts towards Health Professionals. This consultation sought input on the content for the proposed website. There were 21 Focus Groups held across the State, attended by a broad audience including Clinicians and Hospital Administrators from the public and private sectors, Primary Health Networks, Unions, Private Hospitals Association and Private Insurers. An online submissions process was also offered with over 70 submissions received.

As part of the co-design process, consumers and health professionals reviewed design drafts, with feedback used to refine the web information system design, functionality and user experience, including presenting information in a meaningful way with appropriate supporting explanations. Further consultation with consumers and health professionals occurred in 2020 to refine the website application and ensure accuracy of content including descriptive terms and explanatory materials.

A small group of consumers and facility end-users had opportunity to ‘road-test’ the near-final production application. Feedback was generally positive and was used to inform the final optimisation of the application in preparation for public launch, and possible enhancements after release.

The Inform My Care Advisory Committee (IMCAC) was established to provide high-level strategic advice and recommendations to assist in building and implementing Inform My Care to allow the public to view and compare information about Queensland’s public and private health service facilities and residential aged care facilities. Furthermore, the IMCAC provided feedback on the presentation of the initial tranche of indicators and information to be published and will advise on identification of future indicators and/or information for publication subsequent to the initial tranche of information published.

Membership of the IMCAC includes consumers, surgeons, representatives from public and private healthcare and residential aged care facilities, aged care, primary care, Queensland Clinical Senate, Queensland Clinical Networks and Department of Health staff.

The Health Transparency Act 2019 (the Act) was passed by the Queensland Parliament on 28th November 2019 and commenced on 1 March 2020. The Act provides a standalone legislative framework to collect and report quality and safety information from public and private hospitals and residential aged care facilities (RACFs) in Queensland. The main purpose of the Act is to improve transparency of the quality and safety of health services provided in Queensland, while helping people make informed decisions about their healthcare needs.

Hospitals

Under the Act, public and private hospitals are required to provide specific data as detailed in the Health Transparency Regulation (2020). Hospitals will be asked for general information such as contact details, health services offered and information about parking. Queensland Health will prepopulate all hospital quality and safety information to be published including clinical outcomes, access to care and hospital activity information except for the number of ‘Golden Staph’ infections for private hospitals.

Residential Aged Care Facilities

Under the Act, RACF information such as address, phone number and nursing care information can be published. To promote transparency and assist Queenslanders to make informed decisions, Queensland Health will provide this information for public RACFs and request that private RACFs provide nursing care information. As detailed in the Act, Private RACFs can provide written confirmation that they choose to opt-out from providing some or all of this information each quarter.

A full list of indicators to be published initially and hospital peer groupings (to assist in comparing similar hospitals) can be found by clicking on the above links.

Hospitals

Public and private hospitals provide a range of information to Queensland Health under existing arrangements such as through the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patient Data Collection and Queensland Perinatal Data Collection. Many of the measures to be published are sourced from these datasets.

Residential Aged Care Facilities

The Office of the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Queensland Health will collect and provide nursing care measures for the public RACFs that will be published in line with the Act. Private RACFs will be asked to provide this measure information if they do not nominate to opt-out.

Chief Executive Officers of public and private hospitals and approved providers of RACFs will nominate senior staff who will have a period of 15 business days to review, enter and approve information and data prior to publication on Inform My Care. In addition, comments can be added that will be visible to the public to explain specific data results. Comments can also be added to be visible to only Queensland Health that relate to any concerns regarding data. These comments may include requests to suppress data from publication if severe data issues are verified.

The process to report and review data has been designed to minimise additional administrative burden on staff at facilities. A nominated facility staff member will be required to report a minimal amount of information and data through a secure web-based data verification application. The nominated person will also be required to review pre-populated information and data that will be drawn by Inform My Care administrators via existing data collections. Promotional materials and education support will be available to help implement and assist nominated persons to navigate the system. Key dates on reviewing and reporting data were provided in advance to facilities to aid planning and organisation.