Postgraduate - UnitMPH5267 - Principles of health care quality improvement

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
Offered	Alfred Hospital Second semester 2014 (Day) Alfred Hospital Second semester 2014 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Sue Evans

Synopsis

Historical, political & social factors impacting on quality measurement in health care. Relationship of industrial & health care quality monitoring. Epidemiological & statistical quality measurement principles. Strength & limitations of current monitoring techniques & different sources of health care quality data. Principles of clinical indicator programs, adverse event monitoring, satisfaction surveys & benchmarking. Relationship between evidence based medicine, clinical practice guidelines & quality improvement. Design, implementation & evaluation of quality improvement programs in clinical settings. The content builds on other management units in the program such as MPH5266 and Biostatistics and Epidemiology. It is a core unit of the Graduate Diploma and Master of Health Services Management.

Outcomes

On completion of this unit student should be able to:

Describe the factors that have led to a greater emphasis on quality measurement and improvement in health care.
Demonstrate an understanding of the tools that are used in quality measurement and improvement, including:

Clinical indicator programs
Adverse event monitoring
Satisfaction surveys
Benchmarking
Evidence based medicine
Clinical guidelines
Quality improvement programs
Accreditation programs
Risk management

Apply a knowledge of international quality improvement programs.
Contribute to the debate on quality improvement issues - such as public disclosure of quality measures.
Design and implement quality improvement programs in the clinical setting.