Health ministers plan new Australian Health Care Agreement
Reform of the national health system and developing a new Australian Health Care Agreement (AHCA) were at the top of the agenda when the Australian Health Ministers Conference met in Melbourne on 31 January.
All Ministers agreed to broaden the current agreement to focus on other aspects of the health system, not just public hospital funding.
As part of AHCA negotiations, all ministers agreed on the need for a nationally consistent data set to detail key areas of healthcare performance covering service delivery responsibilities of both the commonwealth and states and territories.
The Australian Government will require the states and territories to create a single set of data for public and private hospitals to pinpoint failures and guide the $2 billion plan to fix problems in the nation’s health system.
The database will be used to enforce performance benchmarks in areas such as elective surgery waiting lists, aged and transition care and quality healthcare.
A study published last year by the Australian Centre for Health Research found that comparative data on hospital performance was published in Britain and the US and had benefited patients, but there was no uniform record on hospital performance in Australia.
