Planning health services: cooperation between professionals and health authority

This paper describes an exercise in cooperative research between the Health Commission of New South Wales and a professional body - the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. This exercise has provided an encouraging example of a professional body accepting responsibility for, and monitoring, its own standards of health care, assisted with data and advice from the health authority. The Neurosurgical Society used the Commission's extensive data from the hospital morbidity data collection system. This system is briefly described. The results of this work were presented to an international symposium on head injuries. Several major problems existing in this field of neurosurgery were identified, and their various clinical and organizational aspects are being further researched, for the Society of formulate recommendations for solutions. This experience demonstrates the value of such cooperation and provides an example which could be followed by other disciplines of surgery. The need to supply the highest quality of care, the high cost of medical services, and increasing consumer interest in the outcome of treatment, indicate an increasing need for review of the results of surgical treatment. It is preferable that such a review is conducted by the profession, in cooperation with a governmental health authority, rather than by the latter body alone.