Excellence in Technology Ambulance Victoria Electronic Audit Platform Ambulance Victoria

Team: Luise Grisdale, Desmond McGuirk (Customer Feedback Systems Australasia (CFS)), Joel Mendez (CFS), Tilly Beresford (CFS), Josh Roussos (CFS), Paul Smith, Srinivas Shesham, Renjith Kanavila, Jagadeesh Baskaran, Tony Ginis, Kristy Austin, Warwick Bone, Dave Jones

Monitoring and auditing of clinical care provides assurance that safe and high-quality care is being delivered by Ambulance Victoria (AV) and is the foundation for continuous improvement. AV identified the opportunity to standardise the organisation’s clinical auditing framework, systems, and tools to better analyse and improve patient care on an ongoing basis. This assists in monitoring areas of identified risk and trends while reflecting a safe, highly reliable system.

In November 2022, after successful pilots, AV introduced the innovative Electronic Audit Platform (EAP) to create a consistent organisational approach to auditing. It also provides AV with local and organisational information about the quality and effectiveness of patient care, helping identify risks and priorities for improvement.

The platform is secure and easy to use, providing governance, tools, and reports to support those responsible for auditing and reporting across AV.

The project consisted of three concurrent phases:

• Design and development of a secure electronic audit platform, meeting AV’s Information Communication and Technology (ICT) specifications.

• Compilation of a library of patient care audit tools, and accompanying reports aligned to the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards (NSQHSS) evidentiary requirements, and AV’s Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs), standards, and reporting requirements.

• Development and delivery of a robust Patient Care Audit Framework, procedure, and scope in line with AV’s Best Care commitment and clinical governance framework. This ensures accountability to patients and the community for assuring the delivery of safe, effective, integrated, and continuously improving care across AV, from frontline clinicians to managers and governance committees.

The benefits already experienced include improved consistency, time efficiency and accessibility in patient care reporting at both local and organisational levels. Even more significantly, observational point of care audits for quality improvement are now routinely conducted.