Skip to content
Close

According to recent data, hospital-acquired complications (HACs) affect around 2% of hospitalisations in Australian public hospitals.1

They are also a major cost burden to the health sector, with the average HAC costing the Government an additional $13,000 per episode of patient care.2  Therefore, reducing how often HACs occur will save health services money, as well as putting downward pressure on medical indemnity claims.

What are HACs?

HACs are complications that occur as a result of a patient’s stay in hospital and can include pressure injuries, healthcare-associated infections, delirium, malnutrition, and neonatal birth trauma. With the right clinical mitigation strategies in place, HACs can be prevented, reduced or effectively managed.

In November 2022, VMIA funded three Victorian public health services across regional and metropolitan Melbourne in a two-year pilot program to support them in reducing how often HACs occur in their nominated targeted areas. Due to end in April 2025, VMIA’s Hospital Acquired Complications (HACs) Harm Prevention Pilot is based on the list of 16 HAC categories as defined by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC).

The pilot has funded advanced software for the three health services for two years to enable more timely monitoring and benchmarking of HACs indicators. This near real-time data allows clinical coders to validate and review HACs indicators sooner, helping clinicians to confidently target quality improvement and HACs prevention activities.

VMIA also provided funding for staffing resources to help utilise insights from the software to drive quality improvement projects in this space and track progress.

From our review in November 2024, we’ve seen improvements in how often HACs occur in the targeted areas of these pilot sites, particularly in the screening for conditions such as delirium and pressure injuries. This means clinicians were able to diagnose patients more promptly, thereby initiating treatment sooner, resulting in better outcomes for patients and families.

When the pilot concludes in April, we’ll evaluate the project to determine to what extent the results were due to data improvements or quality improvement projects initiated by the health service.

Achievements of our pilot have been shared at regional forums, including the Victorian Health Information Management Association Conference in October 2024.

To build on the success of this pilot, we’ve invited Victorian public health services meeting specific criteria to bid for funding for quality improvement initiatives targeting HACs, through VMIA’s Harm Prevention HACs Innovation Fund. The process closes in mid-April and funding allocations will be decided by an expert industry panel comprising representatives from VMIA, Safer Care Victoria and an industry representative. We expect to share the results with the successful health services by end-April.