”The Australian health care system has integrated the hybrid model, to which the government provided the public with a universal health insurance scheme to alleviate most out of pocket costs, and thus providing Australians with a basic health insurance. This insurance is called Medicare. On top of Medicare, individuals have the option to purchase Private health cover. “Medicare officially started on 1 February 1984”, to health care more accessible to the general public economically; However, “About 47% of the Australian population has private health insurance.”

“The Australian healthcare system is recognised as one of the best in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD);” however, “10% of Australians had to wait for 4 months or more for elective surgery whereas only 4% of the patients had to wait for elective surgery in Canada.”

The National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards were developed of protect the public from harm and to improve the quality of health service provision. They provide a quality assurance mechanism that tests whether relevant systems are in place to ensure that expected standards of safety and quality are met. The first edition of the NSQHS Standards, which was released in 2011, has been used to assess health service organisations since January 2013.

Implementation of the first edition of the NSQHS Standards has been associated with several important outcomes. These include:

1.         Prevention of harm

2.         Improvements in patient care

3.         Empowerment of consumers and patients

4.         Development of better governance systems

5.         Wiser investment and reduction of waste.

•           Practitioners are to practice under the regulatory authority of AHPRAH – for patient safety, all practionaers mus comply with law to uphold the standards and education.

Section 3

Healthcare-associated infection (HAI) is one of

the most common adverse events in hospitals. Around 50% of HAIs are thought to be preventable through infection prevention and control, cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation, and antimicrobial stewardship. Rates of HAIs associated with serious morbidity have fallen between 2010 and 2014. Significant changes include improvements in hand hygiene, a 7.6% reduction in the use of antimicrobials in hospitals between 2011 and 2015, a 13.5% reduction in Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) between 2010 and 2014, while the national rate of central line- associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) almost halved from 1.02 to 0.64 per 1,000 line days from 2012–13 to 2013–14.