Primary health care
Primary health care is the first point of contact within the health system for the majority of Australians. The sector provides a range of services for the prevention and management of acute and chronic conditions.
Although the current Australian primary health care system performs well and most health care is associated with good clinical outcomes, there is considerable safety and quality variation and preventable adverse events that occur.
Since 2009 the Commission has been working to better understand the issues that affect patient safety in primary care settings. The Commission’s key initiatives include:
- A Primary Care Committee
- Development of National Safety and Quality Primary and Community Healthcare Standards
- The National General Practice Accreditation Scheme
- Scoping study on the feasibility of a patient incident reporting system.