Improving quality and safety in hospitals
This project is a ground-breaking study to inform decision-making on the implementation of quality and safety systems and processes in hospitals in Australia and internationally.
Project sponsor: the National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grant (APP1054146).
About the project
Deepening our Understanding of Quality in Australia (DUQuA) is an Australia-wide, NHMRC funded research project that focuses on the quality of care in Australian hospitals. It was conducted in 32 large public hospitals around Australia during the period mid-2014 to mid-2019. These hospitals had 119 participating departments, and 2387 participants, including clinicians (doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals), hospital managers and patients.
DUQuA aimed to identify how hospital quality management systems, leadership and culture in Australian hospitals are related to healthcare delivery quality and patient factors. It extends the work undertaken in the ‘Deepening our Understanding of Quality improvement in Europe’ (DUQuE) study, which examined the relationships between quality management systems, clinical processes, and patient factors in 188 hospitals across seven European countries.
External project members
- Associate Professor Natalie Taylor, Senior Research Fellow, Cancer Institute NSW, and Visiting Fellow, Macquarie University
- Teresa Winata
- Pei Ting, Biostatistician
The full findings have been published in articles for international peer-reviewed journals, in individual reports to participating hospitals, and at international conferences and symposiums.
- The International Journal for Quality in Health Care DUQuA Supplement was published 5 February 2020. Read the DUQuA Supplement online. If you do not have access, contact us to request a copy at aihi@mq.edu.au.
- Download a factsheet outlining the key learnings.
- Download an introduction to DUQuA presentation.
- Each participating hospital received a confidential benchmarking report in October 2019.
This large-scale study involves collaboration with various organisations, including:
- Deepening our Understanding of Quality in Europe consortium
- National Stroke Foundation
- Australian and New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry
- The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards
- Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
- The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators
- Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.