Four-year funding for Clinical Quality Registry program
Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine secured four-year funding in this week’s Federal budget to support its Commonwealth-funded national Clinical Quality Registries (CQRs). The investment reflects the valuable role of CQRs in driving improvements in the safety and quality of healthcare experienced by Australians.
The CQRs in the School covered by the funding announcement include those focussed on dementia, cystic fibrosis, and pelvic floor disorders, as well as diabetes, breast devices and spinal surgery.
CQRs systematically monitor the quality of healthcare by routinely collecting, analysing and sharing standardised health-related information. This information is reported back to contributing healthcare sites, providing them with national benchmarking to help guide improvement, with the aim of “ensuring patients receive the best quality medical procedures and treatments”.
The Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care lists 107 CQRs in Australia that monitor the effectiveness and efficacy of care from a range of procedures and diseases. Monash University manages 45 of these and is the largest academic provider of CQRs in Australia. Within Monash, the vast majority are housed within SPHPM, which has diverse core capabilities that are uniquely suited to driving sustainable health improvement in the real world.
A comprehensive list of CQRs managed by the School is available here: Monash Clinical Registries - Public Health and Preventive Medicine
The funding announcement importantly heralds a move from short-term funding commitments to a four-year funding cycle, allowing for longer term strategic planning to maximise the value and outcomes of these registries.
Head of the School’s Clinical Outcomes Data Reporting and Research Program, Professor Susannah Ahern, says “This national commitment to funding high priority clinical quality registries over the next four years is extremely welcome for these clinical registries as well as the clinicians, health services, patients and researchers who benefit greatly from the insights and information that they bring. We are delighted at this recognition that CQRs play a significant role in improving outcomes for patients across the healthcare sector.”
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