By Georgia Parsonson
The Inform My Care website has been launched by Queensland Health this week. It is intended to provide Queenslanders with safe, reliable, and quality information regarding the state’s public and private hospitals, as well as Queensland’s aged-care facilities.
With Inform My Care, Queensland residents can search for information regarding performance indicators for public and private hospitals, such as maternity options and outcomes, rates of post-surgery infections, and elective surgery wait times. In doing so, the website would allow Queensland residents to make informed decisions regarding their healthcare.
“The information you need to make safe and informed healthcare decisions across all Queensland facilities is now all in one central location,” Minister D’Ath said.
“Aged care facilities can also showcase their quality and safety aspects, including average daily resident care hours and for public residential aged care facilities, compliance with the recently legislated nurse and support worker-to-resident ratios.
“It’s an important step towards greater transparency across the entire health system, and we thank the private operators that have come on board.”
The Health Transparency Act 2019 was established for the website. It applies to all facilities in Queensland, regardless of whether it is public or private.
“Evidence from both Australian and international jurisdictions confirm that hospitals which provide the highest quality of care are those that have a detailed focus on a strong safety culture which is supported by open and transparent reporting,” Minister D’Ath said.
“Reporting safety and quality information in the public domain has been shown to stimulate efforts to improve performance that internal reporting of the same information fails to produce, leading an improvement in the overall performance of the health system.”
“Inform My Care is a step in the right direction to ensuring all Queenslanders feel confident to make the right healthcare decision for themselves and their families.”
For more information regarding the Inform My Care website, visit https://www.informmycare.health.qld.gov.au/home.