Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Programme) Notice 2019

2019/279

Coat of Arms of New Zealand

Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Programme) Notice 2019

Pursuant to section 54(3) of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, the Minister of Health, being satisfied of the matters set out in that subsection, gives the following notice.

Notice

1 Title

This notice is the Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Programme) Notice 2019.

2 Commencement

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette.

3 Interpretation

In this notice, specified health practitioner means an orthopaedic surgeon who is participating in the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Continuing Professional Development Programme as the visited orthopaedic surgeon.

4 Declaration of protected quality assurance activity

The following quality assurance activities are protected to the extent that they are undertaken by orthopaedic surgeons acting on behalf of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association in relation to specified health practitioners:

(a)

reviewing the following information provided by the specified health practitioner:

(i)

information about the specified health practitioner’s practice gathered from questionnaires completed by colleagues, co-workers, and patients; and

(ii)

a summary of the surgical audits relating to the specified health practitioner’s practice from the previous 2 years; and

(iii)

the specified health practitioner’s operating lists from the previous 2 months; and

(iv)

up-to-date data relating to the specified health practitioner’s practice obtained from the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association National Joint Registry; and

(v)

a record of the specified health practitioner’s continuing professional development activities to date; and

(vi)

a completed practice profile questionnaire; and

(b)

discussing that information with the specified health practitioner; and

(c)

reviewing the specified health practitioner’s practice surroundings, facilities, and processes; and

(d)

reviewing 10 randomly selected case records of the specified health practitioner that include both public and private cases; and

(e)

observing the specified health practitioner perform a surgical session; and

(f)

conducting a concluding interview with the specified health practitioner; and

(g)

providing a report to the specified health practitioner and to the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Committee with recommendations as to how any shortcomings should be addressed.

Dated at Wellington this 4th day of November 2019.

Hon Jenny Salesa,
for the Minister of Health.

Explanatory note

This note is not part of the notice, but is intended to indicate its general effect.

This notice comes into force on the day after the date of its notification in the Gazette. It declares the quality assurance activities described in clause 4 to be protected. Quality assurance activities are activities that are undertaken to improve the practices or competence of health practitioners by assessing the health services performed by those practitioners.

The effect of protecting a quality assurance activity is that—

  • any information that becomes known solely as a result of the activity is confidential; and

  • any documents brought into existence solely for the purposes of the activity are confidential; and

  • the persons who engage in the activity in good faith are immune from civil liability.

The protections afforded by this notice are subject to certain statutory exceptions. For example, this notice does not prohibit the disclosure of information that does not identify, either expressly or by implication, a particular individual.

This notice revokes the Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—New Zealand Orthopaedic Association Practice Visit Programme) Notice 2016.

This notice remains in force for 5 years, unless sooner revoked.

Issued under the authority of the Legislation Act 2012.

Date of notification in Gazette: 21 November 2019.

This notice is administered by the Ministry of Health.