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A report outlining mishaps in hospitals throughout the country includes 16 recorded serious incidents in Bay of Plenty hospitals.
The Serious and Sentinel Events report revealed three mishaps recorded by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board in which patients died, along with 13 other serious incidents between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011.
File photo.
The report, released on Monday, was undertaken by the Health Quality and Safety Commission entitled ‘making Our Hospitals Safer’.
The Bay of Plenty Health Board supports the report and CEO Phil Cammish says the report confirms the work DHB’s work to minimise the occurrence of serious and sentinel events for patients, reporting no increase in reported falls for 2010-11.
He says the DHB Patient Safety Committee with representatives from the executive leadership team and professional leaders including the Medical Director and the directors of Nursing and Allied Health targeted three main areas.
These areas include improving patient safety, namely falls, surgical site infection reduction and improved communication between clinical staff and between the patient and clinical staff.
Phil says the reason for focusing on these areas is because they can make the greatest impact on improving patient care.
The BOP health board recognised reducing harm from falls as a top priority for 2011 and launched a three month pilot falls’ reduction programme with staff to minimise the risk.
Phil says the pilot has made good progress to track improvement and compliance to minimise the risk of our patients.
“We look forward to seeing the measured results and will now be implemented in other areas.
“We are pleased to see that there has been no increase in falls from 2010/11, however there is still room for improvement and we are committed to the continuation and development of our service and care with projects such as SBARR (Situation, Background, Recommendations and Response) and the falls reduction programme, which are specifically identified in the report to minimise the risk to patients.”
Phil says good communication between clinical staff will improve patient care.
“We have on this basis rolled out a number of additional programmes including Team Stepps in theatre and the Emergency Department to improve team communication alongside internationally recognised handover tools such as SBARR and two hourly timeout sessions for clinical teams to take a stock take of patients in ED and to ensure their care is well coordinated.”
Posted on 21-02-2012 16:40 | By sojourner
How about having adequate staff at the Emergency Department? Three times we have been there and had to wait from about 10pm until 5am to be helped. One of those times we gave up and went to the doctors on 2nd. Ave. to be told the triage nurse had misdiagnosed (she did not listen to us) my daughters condition which nearly resulted in her losing sight in one eye. Another time I was given an appointment with a specialist, where I waited several hours to be told he was too busy to see me and was sent home. This resulted in surgery in another hospital. Tauranga Hospital is a showcase of up to date medical care, yet does not have the staff to take the load. Why not?