Calvary, an Australian not-for-profit healthcare provider, has changed its approach to regulatory compliance and continuous improvement with the announcement of a collaboration with MEG, an Irish digital quality management system. The partnership has seen MEG's services implemented as the digital auditing tool for clinical quality audits, standardising the monitoring and measurement of data across all of Calvary's services, from hospital to home care.

This partnership, in place since 2023, was recently highlighted during a visit by Ireland’s Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly. The Minister took the opportunity to observe firsthand how the digital tool helps Calvary meet regulatory requirements and improve practice at their Ryde Residential Aged Care service.

The National Director of Clinical Governance at Calvary, Kris Salisbury, said the choice to implement MEG’s auditing tool was inspired by a desire to make an essential task meaningful. She said, "As a healthcare provider committed to quality care, we adopt robust auditing processes to ensure we remain compliant in a highly regulated system and do our best to ensure patient safety. Our aim for these practices was to lead to the improvement of care and enable transparency about the care we provide."

In collaboration with MEG, Calvary has developed a flexible auditing tool that has been tailored to suit the various health fields across the organisation. Salisbury reported an overwhelmingly positive response to the MEG tool, rolled out in 2022, in all of Calvary’s 14 hospitals. She said, "The real-time dashboard has made a significant difference across the hospitals. It allows individual users to focus on their own data, more easily identifying opportunities for consistent improvement."

Importantly, MEG’s system has allowed Calvary to create a culture of transparency and standardisation, paving the way for operational efficiencies. The introduction of the tool to Calvary’s home care services in 2023 further extended these benefits, offering an organisational-wide view of compliance, quality and safety. Salisbury added, "The next steps for us in using MEG is to create data-backed benchmarking across the organisation to track our improvements and that is an exciting space to be in."

Minister Donnelly spoke enthusiastically about the impact of Irish innovation on Australian healthcare and celebrated the expansion of the partnership between MEG and Calvary. He said, "We celebrate the expansion of this partnership, which reinforces the continued collaboration and exchange of knowledge between the Irish and Australian healthcare sectors."

In closing, Digital Health Market Advisor at Enterprise Ireland, Sophie O'Grady, highlighted the positive achievements of the MEG-Calvary collaboration. She said, "This successful partnership is exemplified by MEG and Calvary Health Care’s common goal of commitment to continual improvement, quality care and patient safety. It serves as an excellent example of the positive impact that can be made when innovation meets forward-thinking in healthcare."