Comprehensive Care – Minimising Harm

The Older Persons' Patient Safety program has developed the Comprehensive Care – Minimising Harm (CC-MH) safety model, which puts the focus on how we safely care for older people in hospital, especially those with frailty, cognitive impairment and decreased mobility. The model ensures patient, family and carer experiences and outcomes are at the centre of our clinical care.

The model incorporates building blocks for a safe ward which highlight the communication processes to support patient centred care delivery. The clinical care components provide prompts to guide actions required to care for older people. It is anticipated that through improved focus on minimising harm there will, over time, be a reduction in hospital acquired complications (HAC) such as falls, pressure injury, delirium, malnutrition and infection (urinary tract infection and pneumonia).

A quality improvement toolkit has been developed and is available for clinicians to use to improve the care for older people in NSW Health Services. The CEC has also developed a series of videos and education session outlines.