Choosing Wisely Program at RPBG: A WA Health Excellence Award Finalist
At East Metropolitan Health Service (EMHS) we strive to achieve the best outcomes in everything we do, and we are always working to improve the way we deliver our services as part of our commitment to our vision of healthy people, amazing care.
Everything that we do is done so with our community in mind, and the 11 very special EMHS projects that were recognised as finalists in the 2019 WA Health Excellence Awards demonstrate what it means to deliver amazing care to our community each and every day.
Read about the Choosing Wisely - Eliminating Unnecessary Tests, Treatments and Procedures program and why it has been recognised for Managing resources efficiently and effectively and helping us to improve the way we deliver our services.
Royal Perth Bentley Group (RPBG) joined the national Choosing Wisely initiative in 2016 to ensure tests, treatments and procedures prescribed to our patients bring the highest value at the lowest risk, and empower our patients to have important conversations with their clinician about their healthcare options.
In November 2018 the RPBG team joined with the EMHS High Value Health Care team to share learnings, build cross-site collaboration and improve our patient’s understanding of the important role that they play in the decisions about their care.
Furthermore, the Choosing Wisely Support Team (CWST) was established to support our staff to improve clinical pathways through evidence based recommendations. One example of these improvements is the RPH Intensive Care Unit, where the team have halved the number of volume of blood gas tests performed each month by approximately 133 less tests. Based on contemporary evidence and recommendations from the Choosing Wisely team, the guidelines for blood gas testing were changed to clearly articulate ‘when to test’ and ‘when not to test’.
Excellent work such as this is helping to improve the patient experience across EMHS. Congratulations to the Choosing Wisely team!