South Australia/Western Australia

QMS develops a Quality Accreditation Roadmap for the Western Australian Network of Alcohol & other Drug Agencies (WANADA) to help agencies move from the WA Alcohol & Other Drugs (AOD) Quality Framework to the Quality Improvement Council (QIC) Accreditation.

As part of the Establishing Quality Health Standards (EQHS) initiative, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing's Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH) is providing funding for OATSIH funded Drug and Alcohol services to be accredited by June 2011.

In response to this initiative, WANADA contracted Quality Management Services (QMS) to produce a 'Roadmap' for transitioning from the WA AOD Quality Framework to National accreditation under the Quality Improvement Council (QIC) Standards and Accreditation Program.

There are eight drug and alcohol services in Western Australia which are affected. However other non OATSIH funded drug and alcohol services in WA may also want to make the transition from the Quality Framework to the more formal process of QIC Standards and Accreditation Program. This Roadmap allows services to build on the work done for the WA AOD Quality Framework and provide a guided transition to formal accreditation, with the associated benefit and recognition of National accreditation.

To access the Quality Accreditation Roadmap documents please click the link below as well visit the WANADA website:

Roadmap of Quality Framework to QIC Accreditation

Back (left to right): Mike Seward (Executive Director, WANADA), Alison Sinclair (State Manager SA/WA, QMS), Wendy Richardson (Quality & Accreditation Officer, OATSIH), Sharon Clews (Accreditation Officer, AHCWA)
Front (left to right): Wayne Flugge (Aboriginal Services Manager, WANADA), Josie Maxted (Alcohol & Other Drugs Training Officer, AHCWA)

New South Wales

In February 2009, AH&MRC invited QMS to work jointly with AH&MRC to build the capacity of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS's) to maximise their ability to integrate continuous quality improvement within in their services and to achieve QIC Accreditation.

Since February, this has involved three initiatives:

• QMS has run three training sessions across NSW/ACT targeting ACCHS's to explain the QIC review process and prepare them for their role in the accreditation review cycle.
• QMS has targeted training specifically to the ACCHS sector to build a pool of skilled reviewers who could conduct external reviews of organisations using the QIC Health and Community Service Standards as part of a QMS review team of other organisations. We currently have eleven new trainee or peer reviewers from the ACCHS sector ready to commence on site reviews.
• QMS has committed to further develop these peer reviewers’ knowledge, skills and experiences by placing them onto external reviews as a trainee team member to learn the process 'on the job'.

left to right: Jenny Klause (QMS), Lis Maier (QMS), Jen Cook (Galambila AHS), Margaret Simpson (Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service), Karen Boscheinen (Katungul ACC&MS), Tracy Wilkinson (Orange AMS), Elsya Renton (SSW AHS), Rebecca Smith (QMS)