In healthcare, it is widely recognized that current incident management systems and patient safety investigations have not been as effective as anticipated in reducing the frequency of incidents causing harm to patients, also known as adverse events. Despite ongoing efforts, these systems often fall short in systematically addressing and preventing harm.
The Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University is conducting pioneering research as part of a National Health and Medical Research (NHMRC) Partnership Grant, in collaboration with four public health systems across Australia. This research aims to transform the way health systems respond when patients are harmed. The three core objectives of this research include:
- Evaluating Traditional and Emerging Methods: Developing best practices and decision support tools to improve responses to serious incidents and enhance learning from them.
- Integrating Artificial Intelligence: Testing innovative approaches, including AI tools, to enhance the analysis of incidents and the learning process.
- Conducting an Economic Appraisal: For the first time, undertaking a cost analysis of incident management processes in Australia to assess the economic impact of patient safety reviews and incident management systems.
In this session, the presenters will summarize key findings from the research to date and highlight groundbreaking innovations taking place in Australia to improve responses to adverse events and patient safety investigations. These include involving consumer representatives in investigation teams and offering Dedicated Family Support for patients impacted by adverse events.
Presentation topics include:
- The major challenges and limitations of current patient safety investigations
- Research and innovations being trialed in Australia to improve the effectiveness of safety investigations
- How these research findings and innovations can be adapted and applied to the U.S. healthcare system
Click here to register via GoToWebinar.
Wednesday, July 16, 2025: 1:00 p.m.- 2:00 p.m. (PT)
Professor Peter Hibbert (B.App.Sc.(Physio), Grad.Dip.Comp., Grad.Dip.Econ., PhD) is a researcher at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation. He has worked for the last 20 years in research and policy implementation in patient safety and measurement of evidenced-based care, including three years as an Associate Director at the National Patient Safety Agency in the UK. He previously worked as a physiotherapist for 12 years.
His interests are quality and safety in aged care and healthcare, indicator development, measuring evidence-based care, and safety investigations. He ran the CareTrack Aged study which was the first study in the world to measure the level of evidence-based care provided to residents in aged care facilities.
As well as research, Hibbert has hands-on clinical governance roles including membership of Board level committees for quality and safety at the South Australian Ambulance Service and undertaking high profile investigations when patients or residents are harmed. In the last seven years, he has conducted over 200 patient safety and investigation workshops across more than 50 organisations, training >7,000 healthcare senior executives, managers and clinicians.
HQI is an approved continuing education (CE) provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing and will provide CHPSO members an opportunity to earn CEs. Provider Number CEP16793 for 1 contact hours.
Please contact CHPSO at info@chpso.org if you have any questions.