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Message from the CEO: It is testimony to the high importance we give to clinical governance, that 600+ people - many of them Australian digital health experts and leaders - gathered in Sydney last week for the Connect. Care. Confidence Summit.
The purpose of the summit was to facilitate a better understanding of our shared responsibility of safety, quality and the continuous improvement in the delivery of health technologies.
As everyone in the room – and our members – know, you can’t do digital health without having appropriate clinical governance. It underpins everything we do, and when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong. Hosted by the Australian Digital Health Agency, the first Clinical Governance in Digital Health Summit was held in collaboration with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
As one of the invited speakers, I congratulated the Agency for bringing us together. From the stage, looking at so many of my friends and colleagues from over two decades working in the field, I posed the question - “If clinical governance is so important and so aligned to the core of health and care, why do we get it wrong?” Is better connected health and care enough?
We may have our wins and success stories, but we don’t get it right all the time in digital health. There are many examples of clinical governance gone wrong. From lack of data privacy and security which lead to serious breaches of patient information, to lack of proper training for the those on the frontline health workforce, and our frequent failure to engage with patients and consumers.
Everyone working in healthcare, at all levels, has a role to play. Gone are the days when your role in clinical governance was because it was in your job title. If you work in the healthcare space in any capacity, you have a responsibility. Just like cyber security, clinical governance is now important to all of us.
The challenge is for all of us to understand how we translate “knowing better” to “doing better”.
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