Health Insurance (Quality Assurance Activity) Declaration 2018 (No. 1) (Cth)

Health Insurance (Quality Assurance Activity) Declaration 2018 (No. 1)

I, BRENDAN MURPHY, delegate of the Minister for Health, make this declaration under section 124X of the Health Insurance Act 1973.

Dated: 5^th March 2018   

Prof. Brendan Murphy

Chief Medical Officer

Department of Health

Contents

PART 1           PRELIMINARY3

1            Name3

2.           Commencement3

3.           Authority3

4.           Repeal3

5.           Schedule   3

SCHEDULE    4

Part 1          Preliminary

1. Name

This Declaration is the Health Insurance (Quality Assurance Activity) Declaration 2018 (No. 1).

1. Commencement

This Declaration commences on the day after it is registered on the Federal Register of Legislation.

1. Authority

This Declaration is made under subsection 124X(1) of the Health Insurance Act 1973.

1. Repeal

This Declaration is repealed at the end of 5 years after the date on which it was signed.

1. Schedule

The quality assurance activity described in the Schedule to this Declaration is declared to be a quality assurance activity to which Part VC of the Health Insurance Act 1973 applies.

Schedule – Declaration of quality assurance activity

1            Name of activity:

Australian Otolaryngology Head and Neck Quality Assurance Network

1. Description of activity:

This quality assurance activity consists of the collection of sensitive information about surgical procedures and patient outcomes from Otolaryngology Head and Neck surgeons through a web-based system. The information relates to cancer diagnosis and staging, treatment plans, surgeon, patient and hospital details, surgical and non-surgical interventions, tumour properties, follow-up appointments, and monitoring of results and will later expand to include rhinology and otology as two additional modules.

The activity will be engaged in by the Australian Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Limited (ASOHNS). ASOHNS is the representative organisation for Ear, Nose and Throat Head and Neck surgeons in Australia.

The activity includes data analysis of the information which is collected. This will be conducted by a Data Sub‑Committee of ASOHNS comprising of otolaryngology head and neck surgeons with the necessary medical knowledge to make informed assessments of the data collected, as well as one member with expertise in statistics and data analysis.

Data collected through the activity will be compiled and analysed, with regular reports including information about benchmarks and outliers provided back to clinicians.

Individual surgeons will be able to review their own cases and assess their results through the outcomes reported by patients following surgery.

De‑identified reports on the processes and outcomes of the activity will be published annually and meaningful reporting will be circulated to users of the system on a regular basis. Public reports will be peer reviewed prior to the publication of findings. These reports will provide recommendations based on data to enable clinicians to engage in evidence based outcomes. Regular publication of registry reports will be used to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of any recommendations made.