Harnessing binational knowledge and expertise to develop quality indicators for paediatric critical care

Measuring healthcare quality is critical for improving patient safety. Accurate, reliable and timely measurement enables hospitals to monitor staff performance, understand patient complications, and evaluate interventions to improve patient safety. Unfortunately, to date, the sickest children in hospital have been largely overlooked in patient safety recommendations, leading to uncertainty around ‘what to measure’ in this high-risk population.

We have identified an urgent, unmet need to develop measures of healthcare quality that apply to children. To address this gap, we will develop a set of important measures of hospital quality care (indicators) to support the consistent, robust measurement of safety among the most unwell children in Australia and New Zealand. By surveying doctors, nurses and parents, and asking them to agree on their thoughts, we will aim to reach agreement on these indicators. Incorporating safety and quality measures into existing local and national hospital quality systems will help us build a stronger patient safety measurement system for children in intensive care.

Principal Investigators

Dr Jessica Schults, The University of Queensland, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, Queensland, Australia

Dr Johnny Millar, Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne Paediatric Intensive Care Unit and Australia and New Zealand Paediatric Intensive Care Registry, Victoria, Australia

Professor Claire Rickard, The University of Queensland, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Lisa Hall, The University of Queensland, School of Public Health, Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Debbie Long, Queensland University of Technology, School of Nursing, Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Kristen Gibbons, Centre for Children’s Health Research, Child Health Research Centre, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

Dr Sarfaraz Rahiman, Queensland Children’s Hospital, Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, Queensland, Australia

Ms Katrina Hutching, Starship Children’s Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand

Ms Marghie Murgo, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care

Ms Karina Charles, The University of Queensland, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, Queensland, Australia

Mrs Anna Lake, Consumer/Parent