History & Objectives
The APSF was incorporated as an association in July 1989, but the origins of the Foundation derive from an incident monitoring study in anaesthesia (AIMS-Anaesthesia) that began in 1988. This study arose from a symposium on patient safety and monitoring (Adelaide 1987). The symposium found that problems occurring in anaesthetic practice in Australia should be identified and analysed so that cost-effective preventative methods could be developed to minimise their adverse effects.
A related study into Hyperbaric Medicine incidents (HIMS) began in 1992, and is coordinated by the Hyperbaric Unit of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, in collaboration with APSF. The study receives reports from Australian and international centres and the results have been presented at international meetings such as the Hyperbaric and Underwater Medicine Society.
In 1993, funding was received from the Australian Commonwealth Government to continue AIMS-Anaesthesia, and to set up pilot studies in other specialty areas. In 1994 the brief was broadened to develop an incident monitoring model that could be used on an institutional basis, rather than being specialty focused. A pilot study was conducted in six tertiary facilities in different Australian States.
The national release of results from the Quality in Australian Health Care Study (QAHCS) in 1995 prompted strong reaction from government, health care professionals, and the public generally. The South Australian government took the initiative to look at options for reducing risk in South Australian health care units. As a consequence, in November 1996, the APSF was engaged to develop and implement a patient incident reporting and monitoring system for all public health units in SA - the Australian Incident Monitoring System (AIMS).
Since that time AIMS has been implemented in several Australian States, as well as individual health units. In 2000 the system was introduced into a health care site in New Zealand; other facilities in the United States use AIMS and in 2007 the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), the leading provider of quality improvement services in sub-Saharan Africa, commenced a wide-scale implementation of AIMS. There is growing international interest in the APSF's patient safety products as health care professionals and administrators acknowledge the importance of incident data collection, analysis and remedial solutions.
Since 1988, the APSF has developed classification systems for coding and reporting of incidents and adverse events. Data from the QAHCS was classified into the Generic Occurrence Classification (GOC)TM, and this data compared with the Harvard Medical Practice Study (USA). As part of a process of review and improvement, the GOC has been redeveloped to provide simpler entry of data into the classification, and more effective on-line analysis and reporting, called AIMS version 4 (See Products).