Framework for better care: reconciling approaches to patient safety and quality

In September 2017, the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators adopted a new clinical governance framework that recognised healthcare as a complex adaptive system, and embraced the need for resilient thinking and understanding the differences between work-as-imagined by managers and work-as-done at the front line of patient care. Directors of medical services may soon be implementing the framework in health services across Australia. This perspective describes a new conceptual model that underpins the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators framework, and characterises the challenges faced by all healthcare professionals when trying to achieve safe care for patients in an environment of variable complexity and unpredictability.