Building data capabilities and safety intelligence

Hunter New England Local Health District (LHD) is embedding BHI data into governance, communication and safety intelligence frameworks to strengthen its ability to deliver safer, patient-centred care.

Hunter New England has taken a proactive, district-wide approach to build understanding and capability in staff to use BHI data effectively. The clinical governance team developed a suite of  resources to help clinical teams and facilities interpret and apply BHI data and to foster a culture of data-informed improvement.

Their resources included:

• a fact sheet explaining the purpose, content and effective local use of BHI data
• educational webinars to build data literacy among staff
• a structured template for teams to input BHI results on priority measures, and planned actions for improvement tools to connect BHI insights with other LHD data sources such as incident reports, consumer feedback and complaints.

The team then developed clear processes to ensure insights from BHI reports are integrated into strategic and operational decision-making, and that they reach the right people. For example, BHI quarterly patient experience KPI data are sent to hospital General Managers, and BHI patient survey reports are sent to peak governance bodies, including Board members and consumer representatives.

The Clinical Governance team also uses BHI data as part of its safety intelligence strategy, in line with the NSW Clinical Governance Policy Directive. Safety intelligence uses data to proactively improve patient safety, with data triangulation combining diverse sources to reveal deeper insights. For example:

• At hospital level, emergency department (ED) teams use BHI patient experience data alongside internal assessment tools to improve discharge communication
• At LHD level, the team is developing ways to triangulate BHI data with a range of data including harm score adverse events, patient experience survey results, unplanned readmissions, ED re-presentations, average length of stay and the People Matter Employee Survey results.

The team plan to further develop this information with other information from the Single Digital Patient Record so that key decision makers in the LHD can utilise the data to improve patient safety.

Hunter New England’s work with BHI data continues to evolve. The LHD is refining its triangulation methods to support more predictive safety monitoring.

See more case studies