The Prerequisite For Improving Hospital Care Is A Team Effort
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 10, 2008
William Wolfenden wants to take hospital management back to pre-Medicare days, when doctors were the only health professionals worthy of consultation, to ensure their lofty position in the hierarchy (Letters, March 8-9). The management of hospitals by doctors, for doctors, did not work in the 20th century. Why should it work now?
Dr Wolfenden blames the failure of hospital management by administrators rather than doctors for the decline in hospital care. I would like to know whether he set out on his life's path to be an expert physician, which he no doubt is, or an accomplished administrator with expertise in financial planning, human resources, hotel services, evidence-based medicine and accreditation, or whether he completed a master's in health service management.In the Bathurst Hospital shambles it appears NSW Health did not consult any health professional or architect, just the finance department. Dr Wolfenden rightly decries the lack of consultation with doctors, yet there has been no mention of the failure to consult nurses. There are few aspects of a hospital that do not affect nursing. Who knows better than nurses the space requirements, traffic patterns, bathroom and toilet usage and design environments that are sympathetic for patients, their families and hospital workers, and that ensure better health outcomes at less cost? While doctors may spend 20 minutes a day with their patients, nurses are there constantly. When will health departments learn that the prerequisite for quality health care, whether in acute care hospitals, the community or aged facilities, is a team effort? No speciality has the abiding authority on good patient care and healthy outcomes. This requires doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nutritionists, cleaners, pharmacists, architects and policymakers to work towards a common goal, not to fiercely defend their vested interests to the exclusion of all others. Let us look forwards, not backwards, to better partnerships for health service delivery and put the patient first, not last, on the planning agenda.Maryan Heffernan Narrabeen
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald