Queensland Health's Inform My Care website was launched today, providing the community with safety and quality information about Queensland's public and private hospitals and residential aged care facilities.
Inform My Care allows Queenslanders to search across public and private hospital facilities for information on maternity options and outcomes, post-surgery infection rates, elective surgery wait times and other performance indicators.
Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Yvette D'Ath said the website would greatly assist in those wanting more information on their local facility, enabling them to make informed healthcare decisions.
"The information you need to make safe and informed healthcare decisions across all Queensland facilities is now all in one central location," she said.
Minister D'Ath said data on public and private residential aged care facilities was also available.
"Aged care facilities can also showcase their quality and safety aspects, including average daily resident care hours and for public residential aged care facilities, compliance with the recently legislated nurse and support worker-to-resident ratios," she said.
"It's an important step towards greater transparency across the entire health system, and we thank the private operators that have come on board."
The Health Transparency Act 2019 is the legislative framework that was established for the website and it applies equally to public and private health facilities.
"Evidence from both Australian and international jurisdictions confirm that hospitals which provide the highest quality of care are those that have a detailed focus on a strong safety culture which is supported by open and transparent reporting," Minister D'Ath said.
"Reporting safety and quality information in the public domain has been shown to stimulate efforts to improve performance that internal reporting of the same information fails to produce, leading an improvement in the overall performance of the health system."
"Inform My Care is a step in the right direction to ensuring all Queenslanders feel confident to make the right healthcare decision for themselves, and their families."
