Complaints are not national
November 12, 2012
AUSTRALIA’S health care system
is suffering due to a lack of national
data on health care complaints,
according to a new study by
researchers at the University of
Sydney.
“It is time to agree upon a
national data set for complaints,”
said Sydney Medical School's
Professor Merrilyn Walton, lead
author of the study.
“All states and territories collect
data on health complaints but
there is no consistency about what
is collected and how the terms are
defined.
“Any meaningful comparison and
national analysis about health care
complaints, a highly valuable
source of information, is currently
impossible.
“This means that it is not possible
to benchmark complaints, make
definitive state-by-state
comparisons or establish best
practice in relation to time frames
for assessment, conciliation or
investigation,” she added.
The study, published in The
Australian Review of Public Affairs,
looked at complaint statistics from
the published annual reports for all
state and territory health care
complaint commissions over a five
year period, and found that
comparisons between commissions
were possible only for the most
basic data.
In addition, researchers noted
that shared data was reported by
the commissions on only four out
of an identified list of 18 items.
“Categories for which there is no
overall national total include the
number of enquiries or complaints,
because that data is not collected by
all the commissions,” said Walton.
“There is no national number for
type of organisation complained
about, for completed investigations
or for outcomes of those
investigations that are completed.
“There is no national total for
complaints referred to a
registration board or for
disciplinary action,” she added.
According to the researchers, the
reasons for a lack of national data
include an inconsistency in the
definition of terms including a lack
of common understanding and use
of the term complaint, as well as
inconsistencies between
commissions which include some
using percentages whilst others use
numbers.
“Different statutory requirements
for different commissions explains
some of this but one would expect
each jurisdiction to have similar
accountability and transparency
requirements in relation to public
reporting,” Walton said.
MEANWHILE, despite the issues
with national data, researchers
were able to identify several trends
in complaint reporting, including
the fact that treatment issues are
uniformly the most common issue
for all commissions (excepting WA).
Interestingly, this finding is at
odds with current health literature
which names poor communication
as a cause for complaints, with the
findings showing that treatment
consistently outranked
communication across all HCCs and
years.
“Unsurprisingly, given they are
the largest type of health service
organisation, public hospitals were
the most complained about group,”
said Walton.
Queensland received the highest
percentage of complaints about
public hospitals (59%) with the
remainder of the health care
complaint commissions receiving
between 13% to 25% of hospital
complaints.
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