Clinical Council workshop explores clinical excellence

Clin­i­cians, health exec­u­tives and con­sumer rep­re­sen­ta­tives came togeth­er on 24 Octo­ber 2025 to explore how strong lead­er­ship can advance clin­i­cal excel­lence across South Australia’s health system. 

The work­shop was opened by the Min­is­ter for Health and Well­be­ing, the Hon Chris Pic­ton MP, and led by senior clin­i­cians and mem­bers of the Clin­i­cal Coun­cil, Dr Jem­ma Ander­son and Dr Dim­i­tria Simatos.

The work­shop aimed to:

• Define what clin­i­cal excel­lence means in practice.
• Explore frame­works and strate­gies to embed excel­lence across the system.
• Devel­op action­able rec­om­men­da­tions for lead­ers and net­works to dri­ve sus­tain­able improvement.

The key themes and insights from the work­shop were:

1. Lead­er­ship and sys­tem cohe­sion
Par­tic­i­pants high­light­ed the need for strong, vis­i­ble lead­er­ship and a cohe­sive sys­tem that sup­ports col­lab­o­ra­tion across net­works. Build­ing trust and shared account­abil­i­ty were seen as crit­i­cal enablers for success. 

2. Mea­sur­ing excel­lence
Clin­i­cal excel­lence must be mea­sured through a mix of quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive approach­es, includ­ing statewide KPIs, clin­i­cal qual­i­ty reg­istries, con­sumer feed­back, and bench­mark­ing. There was strong sup­port for real-time data and inte­grat­ing patient report­ed out­come mea­sures to ensure time­ly, action­able insights. 

3. Con­sumer and cul­tur­al per­spec­tives
The work­shop rein­forced the impor­tance of embed­ding con­sumer voic­es and cul­tur­al safe­ty into improve­ment efforts. Lived expe­ri­ence sto­ries were recog­nised as vital for shap­ing care that is com­pas­sion­ate, respect­ful, and respon­sive to com­mu­ni­ty needs. 

4. Data-dri­ven improve­ment
Par­tic­i­pants called for improved data lit­er­a­cy across the work­force and inclu­sion of feed­back loops that demon­strate how mea­sure­ment leads to improve­ment. Address­ing frag­ment­ed sys­tems and ret­ro­spec­tive report­ing was iden­ti­fied as a priority. 

What’s next?
The Coun­cil com­mit­ted to:

• Devel­op­ing a frame­work for Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­works to guide their work towards clin­i­cal excellence.
• Pro­gress­ing ini­tia­tives to improve mea­sure­ment sys­tems and safe­ty culture. 
• Con­tin­u­ing engage­ment with clin­i­cians and con­sumers to refine strate­gies and ensure shared own­er­ship of outcomes.