Safety and quality

Broadly, safety in health care is about avoidance of patient harm. Quality is about whether the health care achieved the desired effect for the patient, and whether it was delivered in line with standards or guidelines. Quality can also refer to whether the health care was delivered in a coordinated way, and whether it was patient-focussed. More information about health care safety and quality is available from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (external link, opens in a new window) [http://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/].

Australian governments are committed to improving the safety and quality of care in hospital. The MyHospitals website supports this goal by making safety and quality information available for individual hospitals. More information will become available in the future.

To learn more about how these safety and quality measures are defined and data collected, read About the data.