Effective clinical and corporate governance underpins the perioperative process. This includes documenting the governance structure within each local health district or specialty health network supports.
Key roles and responsibilities
All NSW Health facilities offering surgical intervention aim to provide an integrated perioperative care service.
A qualified clinical champion will support and lead the perioperative service. They could be an anaesthetist, a physician or a general practitioner with a qualification in perioperative medicine.
Clinical and corporate governance requires coordination and investment. This takes place at the district, facility and service levels.
- Provide executive sponsorship for development of perioperative services
- Support the perioperative service director to engage local surgeons, anaesthetists, primary healthcare providers, general practitioners, primary and community health, and other key stakeholders
- Ensure local structures, processes and tools meet clinical and administrative needs
- Engage and support frontline clinical leaders
- Invest in IT infrastructure for patient engagement and data collection
- Identify a frontline clinician for the perioperative service director role
- Partner a medical clinical leader with a nursing clinical leader
- Support the perioperative service director to engage local surgeons, anaesthetists, primary healthcare providers, general practitioners and other key stakeholders
- Support the establishment of a frontline perioperative service including anaesthetists, nurses, clerks along with the broader multidisciplinary team members
- Support data collection to measure health outcomes and process indicators
- Collaborate with nursing clinical leader
- Coordinate perioperative multidisciplinary care
- Develop service framework
- Identify and manage perioperative patient risk
- Enable case management of vulnerable, high-risk patients
- Establish local guidelines, e.g. pre-admission clinic triage process, risk management, prehabilitation and rehabilitation
- Measure and report outcomes
- Initiate quality improvement
- Contribute to statewide innovations for perioperative care and community health
- Collaborate with medical clinical leader
- Coordinate pre-procedure preparation process, day of surgery admission, ward care and transfer of care
- Coordinate perioperative multidisciplinary care
- Coordinate case management of vulnerable, high-risk patients with primary care and community health
- Collate and distribute process indicators and health outcomes
- Initiate quality improvement
- Establish local guidelines, e.g. pre-admission clinic triage process, risk management, prehabilitation and rehabilitation
- Engage health professionals, consumers and key stakeholders across NSW to develop perioperative services
- Support implementation of the perioperative toolkit
- Use relevant and up-to-date evidence to develop and update the Perioperative Toolkit
- Encourage and support research and innovation in perioperative care
- Promote a multidisciplinary approach to improve the quality, efficiency, effectiveness and safety of perioperative care