PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - W B Runciman
TI  - Lessons from the Australian Patient Safety Foundation: setting up a national patient safety surveillance system—is this the right model?
AID  - 10.1136/qhc.11.3.246
DP  - 2002 Sep 01
TA  - Quality and Safety in Health Care
PG  - 246--251
VI  - 11
IP  - 3
4099  - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/11/3/246.short
4100  - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/11/3/246.full
SO  - Qual Saf Health Care2002 Sep 01; 11
AB  - The evolution of the concepts and processes underpinning the Australian Patient Safety Foundation's systems over the last 15 years are traced. An ideal system should have the following attributes: an independent organisation to coordinate patient safety surveillance; agreed frameworks for patient safety and surveillance systems; common, agreed standards and terminology; a single, clinically useful classification for things that go wrong in health care; a national repository for information covering all of health care from all available sources; mechanisms for setting priorities at local, national and international levels; a just system which caters for the rights of patients, society, and healthcare practitioners and facilities; separate processes for accountability and “systems learnings”; the right to anonymity and legal privilege for reporters; systems for rapid feedback and evidence of action; mechanisms for involving and informing all stakeholders. There are powerful reasons for establishing national systems, for aligning terminology, tools and classification systems internationally, and for rapid dissemination of successful strategies.