The current state of patient journey redesign in Australia

Patient Journey redesign is a fundamental component of any clinical practice improvement initiative. Sometimes known as patient pathway or patient flow, patient journey redesign deals with analysing the overall processes involved with the movement of a patient through a healthcare system, typically a hospital, and then identifying how this journey can be improved via the removal of wasted and excessive activities, process duplication and improved communications between the patient, their carers and the clinicians involved with the journey itself. This paper will outline the status of each Australian state's healthcare reforms and then evaluate these initiatives against three classical 'business reengineering' success factors: 1) senior management support, 2) selection of the right project team staff and 3) communication of the redesign process and project progress. Within the last 2 years, each state government in Australia has issued a healthcare reform strategy. As a result of the strategic directions proposed, all states have initiated a clinical practice improvement programme containing some aspect of patient journey redesign. The evaluation highlighted that overall patient journey redesign initiatives in most Australian states have been setup with a framework that should position them for success. Tasmania has a less rigorous process improvement framework than most other states and this may well be attributable to its smaller size and the close proximity of the executive management team members. The Northern Territory may also need to improve communication avenues to raise the profile of process improvement projects being undertaken and their status and results. The outcomes of this work will provide researchers and healthcare staff with a concise picture of the state of patient journey redesign initiatives within Australia and highlight the robustness of each programme's framework in relation to the evaluated redesign success factors.