Are your National Standards practices sustainable?

The introduction of the National Standards has brought about massive change across all healthcare organisations in Australia.

With the aim to promote a sustainable and responsive healthcare system, the changes have highlighted the need for effective clinical leadership – as well as, the need for clinicians to be accountable for their actions and responsible for delivering quality healthcare service.

John Edmonstone mentioned in a journal article that clinical leadership is the ‘elephant in the room’ meaning that it plays a vital part in the sustainability and success of healthcare, but it is largely ignored and not addressed in many organisations.

However, the role of clinicians is constantly evolving and young upcoming doctors are now required to possess leadership capabilities for the delivery of high-quality care.

Clinical leaders not only serve as a role model for their peers, but also foster an environment where collaboration and innovation is encouraged. Ensuing, clinical leaders are essential to healthcare and play a significant role in shaping the organisational culture and championing best practice.

With the ever-evolving clinical capabilities and consistent transition to the NSQHS Standards model of accreditation, surveyors will be raising the question:

Are your policies, procedures and processes sustainable?

In order to develop a sustainable and ongoing quality improvement process, organisations will need to look beyond the tick-box approach to accreditation.

Future success will depend on an organisation’s ability to embed a culture that values continuous quality improvement and invests resources into delivering it. For many, the first hurdle in achieving NSQHS standards success is developing a culture that values the standards.

Following, demonstrating excellence across clinical governance and consumer partnerships will help to optimising accreditation results.

Adapting your existing processes and systems to adhere to version 2 of the National Standards will assist in building a framework that is fit for your organisation. Without effective systems and processes in place for the version 1 and 2 standards, the resulting effect on clinical applications in the 8 following standards to come will be a risk.

Akolade’s Evaluating Performance against the National Standards Conference will deliver further insights and strategies to embed a culture of continuous performance evaluation. Tickets for this sell out event are on sale now and extremely limited. To register your attendance click here 

After finishing University with a degree in Business Marketing, I decided to make a big jump across seas for the first time and move from the east coast of America to Sydney, Australia. I landed my first job in a sales position in the event industry and soon thereafter moved into a marketing assistant role – following I had the pleasure of interviewing with Akolade which got me to where I am today.

Akolade is a fun, innovative company that brings together people from different walks of life to implement change. As the Marketing Manager, I have the pleasure of wearing many hats which motivates me to succeed, reach people in an array of avenues, grow our events to their full potential, and raise our story. As for me, I am a kind dedicated woman who loves to work hard, exercise, cook, be social and have some fun.