When something adverse happens in hospital, for example, a patient is given the wrong medication, then we are supposed to log a report in the Incident Information Management System or IIMS. It is especially the case that this system should be used when harm to the patient is the result of the error. This is a good system but under-utilised and poorly designed – nonetheless we should continue to promote it.

We should in fact promote it’s extension to medical administration. If we really want accountability about the health care system, and in particular management of the budget, then we need an incident management system for the administrators. Let’s take the human resources department as one example. I have a potential employee for whom I could offer a job, No offer has been made even though the interview occurred 3 weeks ago. The hold up has been with the HR department and their need for more paperwork, etc, etc…..none of which was communicated as advice prior to the advertisement being released. Overall the whole process has been f’d-up, not to mention slow and expensive. So why shouldn’t I log this to IIMS.

Health care management in the Australian public health system is littered with examples of poor practice for which we should have an IIMS system……this is the way to achieve health care reform.