Clinical Care Standard Update – Stillbirth

Since the last Clinical Care Standards update, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care have released the new Stillbirth Clinical Care Standard. 

The Stillbirth Clinical Care Standard aims to reduce unwarranted clinical variation in the
prevention and investigation of stillbirth, and to reduce the number of women experiencing
stillbirth, especially after 28 weeks gestation. It also aims to support best practice in bereavement care for parents (and their families and support people) following any perinatal loss, and in the care provided to women when planning for, and during, subsequent pregnancies. 

The standard does not cover miscarriage, preterm birth, terminations of pregnancy for medical reasons or investigations of neonatal death. ACHS and the Commission acknowledge the tragedy of every perinatal loss, regardless of the nature of the loss or the gestational age at which the loss occurs.

The POS service has added all the indicators under standard to our collection tool with the first period for potential reporting being the 1st half of 2023 dataset. These indicators will be reported in the same manner as ACHS indicators and the manuals for these standards are available on the AHCS website under the POS resources section.

If you are interested in submitting these sets and if they are not available for you in PIRT, please contact the POS team and we will facilitate this. Please send requests to pos@achs.org.au.