Supporting treatment safety – 2018 report

Supporting treatment safety – 2018 report
01 Apr 2018
pdf

Te Kaveinga presents an analysis of the mental health of Pacific peoples and this report summarises key findings on Pacific peoples’ mental and looks at intra-Pacific mental health. The analysis was completed using a pooled dataset, 2015 and 2016 New Zealand Mental Health Monitor with the 2016 Health & Lifestyles Survey, to be able to analyse mental health for smaller subpopulations, such as various subgroups of Pacific peoples.

Purpose

The purpose of this publication is to:

  • support improvements in treatment safety
  • provide a case for investment in prevention: effective improvements in treatment safety reduce patient harm
  • be consistent with the New Zealand health strategy, and the government’s desire to increase transparency of health information.

Methodology

Data Sources

ACC’s treatment injury claims information is based on data collected via the ACC45 and ACC2152 forms. An ACC45 Injury Claim Form is completed by all clients in order to lodge a claim with ACC, often with the assistance of a treatment provider. For a treatment injury claim, a treatment provider also completes an ACC2152 form, to provide clinical information to support the claim.

The published analysis is based on data for treatment injury related claims. The majority of treatment injury claims are covered by ACC’s Treatment Injury Account.

A small number of treatment injury claims are the result of consequential injuries that result from treatment for an injury that is already covered under another ACC account. While they are covered under another account, they are treatment injuries that are relevant to patient safety, and so these consequential injuries have been included in the data used for this analysis.

For example, a client may require surgery as a result of a motor vehicle accident. If the client experiences a treatment injury as part of this surgery, it would be a consequential injury that is covered under the Motor Vehicle Account as part of their original claim. It is also a treatment injury that is relevant to patient safety, and so the consequential injury would be included in the data used for this analysis.

The treatment injury claims data used in this publication reflects the information held as at February 2018 – for claims lodged from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2017. All ACC claims data (including treatment injury claims data) is subject to revisions over time. For example, the claim numbers may change as a result of the review or appeal of an ACC decision.

Population data was sourced from Statistics New Zealand to calculate injury rate per 1,000.

Hospital discharge data was sourced from the MoH’s national minimum dataset to calculate treatment injury claims rates per 10,000 patients discharged (and also as a percentage).

Procedure data was provided by the New Zealand Private Surgical Hospitals Association to calculate treatment injury claim rate per 10,000 procedures.

Data Assurance

ACC analysts have reviewed the treatment injury data against the original claims information, to ensure the data captured accurately reflects the information submitted.

A panel of ACC experts from operational, clinical and analytical backgrounds provided decision-support to develop the inclusion and exclusion definitions used to assemble the data by injury type. For example, adverse reactions to medication include a number of different injury types recorded in the underlying data – depending on the nature of the adverse reaction – and, at the same time, adverse reactions that are not the result of medication also need to be included.

ACC has also undertaken a data-matching exercise with all NZPSHA members. This exercise was to verify data for infections. The data held by ACC was compared with the claims data (and underlying case notes) held by the hospitals.

This data-matching confirmed that the ACC processes are accurately capturing and recording the information provided by claimants and treatment providers.

Less than 5% of cases had incomplete information provided in the claims forms. In all of these cases, the data-matching exercise confirmed that a treatment injury had occurred. The corrections were confined to two aspects of the claims data: for some claims the specific injury type was updated and, for others, the facility where the injury occurred was updated.

Page last modified: 23 Aug 2018