QLD:MyHospitals website could go further, QAMA

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2010
QLD:MyHospitals website could go further, QAMA

BRISBANE, Dec 10 AAP - The Queensland Australian Medical Association says the federal
government's new MyHospitals website doesn't go far enough.

The federal government's MyHospitals website, which includes information on 922 public
and private hospitals around the country, went live at 11am (AEDT) on Friday.

It gives nationally-consistent performance data for almost 1000 Australian hospitals
online for the first time.

QAMA president Dr Gino Pecoraro told AAP it would help the public make decisions.

"We think anything that gives information to patients about what is happening with
their hospitals ... is a great idea," he said.

But Dr Pecoraro said the site could go further to compare bed numbers, occupancy rates,
waiting times for outpatients, and waiting times for the waiting list for elective surgery.

"The federal government should be able to access huge amounts of data from the Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare," he said.

"We think it would value add to the website.

"They're useful pieces of information that patients should have access to."

Australians will be able to search for hospitals by name or use an interactive map
to bring up what services are available at each institution and how long it takes to access
them.

Emergency department waiting times for 2008-09 and 2009-10 will be compared to national
averages, while 2008-09 admissions and outpatients information will be updated early next
year to reflect more recent statistics.

Meanwhile, Dr Pecoraro said one issue that could arise with the site in the future
was keeping the site up-to-date.

"When you get a report from a government department it can frequently run into hundreds,
if not thousands of pages filled with bureaucracy speak," he said.

"For information to be useful to somebody, it needs to be accurate, it needs to be
easily understood and it needs to be timely."

AAP ka/gd/dep

KEYWORD: HOSPITALS QAMA

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