British-born Anaesthetist, Associate Professor Stephen Bolsin of the Department of Peri-operative, Anaesthesia and Pain Management at Geelong Hospital, and medical advisor for St John of God Hospital will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming RACS ACT Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM).
At the meeting, Associate Professor Bolsin will discuss a case study he conducted at St John of God Hospital which measured the number of patients admitted to hospital that were managed according to world-leading specialist society guidelines.
He said that clinicians across a broad range of specialties had the ability to dramatically reduce complication rates if all patients were managed according to guidelines developed by Medical Colleges and specialist societies.
His research introduces the concept of quantitative assessment of clinical engagement by measuring the percentage of patients who have been documented to have received specialist society or college-approved guideline complaint treatment.
"This means following a surgical patient through their hospital stay to determine, for example, if they need antibiotics and that they then receive the right drugs at the right time."
Associate Professor Bolsin said his clinical engagement model involved all hospital staff including medical, nursing, allied health and pharmacy and provided guidelines and assessments of individual and organisational compliance with those guidelines.
He described it as a novel means of measuring clinical engagement in an organisational setting across professional disciplines.
"Such quantitative analyses could then allow organisations to measure the adherence of specialty groups of clinicians against guidelines that the clinicians themselves select which can then be further used for individual and organisational accreditation," he said.
"Some people believe that such complex systems as hospitals cannot achieve excellence in their provision of safe medical care but I could not disagree more with such thinking.
"Working together we could transform hospital safety standards, drastically reduce cost burdens on the health system and allow both organisations and individuals to measure their performance against world-best practice guidelines.
Associate Professor Stephen Bolsin will be presenting Clinical engagement - How to make it work for surgeons at this year's ACT Annual Scientific Meeting on Saturday 27 October. The annual event, centred on the role of surgeons in health advocacy, will include a number of presentations from both national and international speakers and will attract more than 100 Fellows, Trainees, and International Medical Graduates.
Joining delegates this year will be ACT Minister for Health Meegan Fitzharris who will share her views on how surgeons can meaningfully progress improvements in healthcare, and better collaboration between administrators and clinicians.
Sponsors include (Gold) Medtronic, and (Silver) Applied Medical, Bank of Queensland, Getinge, KCI Medical, MDA National and Sanofi.
Hosted by the ACT branch of RACS, this event will be held at the Australian National University Medical School in Garran.