Performance-based hospital funding: a reform tool or an incentive for fraud?

Hospital funding based on achieving targets for numerical key performance indicators was implicated in Queensland's Bundaberg Base Hospital scandal and has driven hospital data fraud in Victoria and New South Wales. Nationally uniform legislation is required to make health service reporting standards consistent and to criminalise public sector data fraud. Urgent action is needed to develop realistic outcome measures that base hospital funding more on the quality and safety of patient care and less on patient throughput numbers.