Establishment of a community advisory committee at a major teaching hospital

With the advent of continuous quality improvement and the '90s focus on patient or customer satisfaction, hospitals have started to try to identify what their patients or customers want. Hospitals serve communities of one sort or another, whether local communities or statewide communities for highly specialized procedures. They need to consult at least their local communities as part of a quality improvement process and also to help determine future directions. Austin Hospital in Australia decided to establish a formal advisory committee in order to accomplish this consultation. Although there have been minor deficiencies in the arrangement, the advisory committee has largely fulfilled the promise for which it was created more than seven years ago.