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Assessment of accuracy of Australian health service death data: implications for the audits of surgical mortality
Author(s) -
McCahy Philip,
Tayyaba Iqra,
Andrew Madison,
Lim Cheryl Mei Ting,
Pornkul Panuwat,
Lay Joshua,
Chin Calvin Wing Hang,
Nguyen Phi,
Vinluan Jessele
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
anz journal of surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.426
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-2197
pISSN - 1445-1433
DOI - 10.1111/ans.15827
Subject(s) - medicine , audit , safer , health care , health services , medical emergency , service (business) , emergency medicine , family medicine , environmental health , population , computer security , management , economy , computer science , economics , economic growth
Background The Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM) investigates all surgically related deaths in Victoria, Australia, as a surgical educational activity aimed to make surgery safer. Whilst data collected within the audit are regularly reviewed for accuracy, there has never been a review of the data provided from health services. Methods Two‐year death data provided by one Victorian health service were reviewed. Hospital notes for 4 months of each year were analysed to assess patients dying under surgical care. These data were compared to referrals to the VASM over the same period. Results Of the 3907 patient deaths recorded, 35.1% were reviewed. During their final admission, 178 (13%) patients underwent a procedure (93 medical and 85 surgical). Only 29.2% of these were recorded in the health service data set. Eighteen patients died under the care of a surgeon without a procedure, meaning that 103 deaths should have been reported to the VASM of which only 55.3% (57/103) were reported. Conclusion There were major errors in the health service database resulting in under‐reporting of deaths to the VASM which could have education and policy repercussions. For improvements to the safety and quality of health services, it is critical that all deaths are accurately recorded by health services and reported to the relevant bodies with internal verification processes.