The public will have access to nationally-consistent performance data for almost 1,000 Australian hospitals online for the first time at the federal government’s MyHospitals website. The website includes information on 922 public and private hospitals around the country and is live at 11am (AEDT) on Friday.
It will allow users to search for hospitals by name or use an interactive map to bring up what services are available at each institution and how long it takes to access them. The Emergency department waiting times for 2008-09 and 2009-10 can be compared with national averages and 2008-09 admissions and outpatients information will be updated early next year to reflect more recent statistics. Other statistics like infection rates etc. would also be updated soon after approval by health authorities.
There is a separate list of public and private hospitals on the website, which was developed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It has a total list of 769 public hospitals and 153 private hospitals. However unlike Labor’s MySchool online resource, MyHospital does not make hospital-to-hospital comparisons easy, but each institution’s peer grouping could be listed in the future.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the website. Victorian Health Minister David Davis is worried that information provided could have been manipulated under the previous state Labor government. “The Victorian auditor-general has pointed directly to data manipulation occurring in key public hospitals, so the overall quality of the data is questionable… One concern is that the Commonwealth simply accepts data without proper quality control,” he said. However Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon assured that Commonwealth has checks and balances in place. “The material has been provided by each state and territory but it has been checked and rechecked by the Institute of Health and Welfare, an independent and very credible body, so we’re confident they’ve done their work well,” she said.
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