Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—Acurity Health Group Limited) Notice 2020

2020/250

Coat of Arms of New Zealand

Health Practitioners (Protected Quality Assurance Activity—Acurity Health Group Limited) Notice 2020

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—Acurity Health Group Limited) Notice 2020.

2 Commencement

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

3 Interpretation

In this notice,—

AHGL means Acurity Health Group Limited

specified health practitioner means a health practitioner who is authorised by AHGL to provide health services at its facilities.

4 Declaration of protected quality assurance activity

The following quality assurance activities are protected to the extent that they are undertaken by AHGL in relation to specified health practitioners:

(a)

reviewing patients’ records; and

(b)

auditing patients’ records in conjunction with the AHGL Audit Programme; and

(c)

analysing data on patients that relates to the following:

(i)

admission and discharge, demographics, and length of stay:

(ii)

morbidity and mortality:

(iii)

unplanned returns to theatre or to the endoscopy suite:

(iv)

unplanned transfers to other health facilities:

(v)

unplanned transfer to a higher level of care during an admission:

(vi)

major collapse:

(vii)

major neurovascular injury:

(viii)

major viscous or solid organ injury:

(ix)

wrong site or side or person treated:

(x)

readmissions to an AHGL facility:

(xi)

clinical indicators, including hospital-acquired infections, falls, pressure areas, and medication errors; and

(d)

identifying and analysing adverse outcomes, including by analysis associated with reviews undertaken; and

(e)

reviewing and analysing patient care processes, patient management and treatment decisions, and treatment outcomes; and

(f)

peer review meetings to study and discuss adverse outcomes identified and the provision of information for peer review purposes; and

(g)

reviewing and analysing all clinical incident documentation; and

(h)

presenting the results of the analysis undertaken in relation to paragraphs (a) to (g) to the internal clinical governance and advisory committees and discussing those results.

Dated at Wellington this 5th day of September 2020.

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 remains in force for 5 years, unless sooner revoked.

Issued under the authority of the Legislation Act 2012.

Date of notification in Gazette: 17 September 2020.

This notice is administered by the Ministry of Health.