Auckland, Feb 18 – Auckland researchers have scored a record cash grant to study the rate of medical mishaps nationally through sloppy hospital treatment.
The foursome, headed by public health expert Professor Peter Davis, have received $1.23 million from the Health Research Council for the first study of its kind in New Zealand.
The group will spend almost three years reviewing 6000 patient files for evidence of injury and death through hospital mishaps.
This could include being infected by a hospital virus, drug reactions, faulty test results or mistakes and mix-ups in treatment. Hospital-acquired infections alone kill hundreds of people worldwide each year.
A team member, Associate Professor Robin Briant, said it would be vital to find out why mishaps happened and advise of ways to avoid them.
A spin-off from the work could be to estimate how much poor or negligent practice cost the country in terms of patient disability, death or extra time in hospital.
The research council said the $1.23 million grant was the biggest awarded for a public health study.
Prof Briant said the team, which also includes Professor Alastair Scott and Associate Professor Stephan Schug, had already finished a pilot study of 500 patient records at three Auckland public hospitals.
She said those results were being analysed and would be used in the national study.
High-profile cases have included a war veteran with a surgical clamp left undetected in his stomach for three years after a 1989 operation at Auckland Hospital.
The patient, Frank Walters, also contracted hepatitis C during that operation. In 1993 he developed gangrene in his toes and ankles after the operation to remove the clamp. Prof Briant said she expected hospital infections to represent a large number of the "adverse outcomes" the researchers would look at.
An estimated 200 people a year were killed by such infections, and they contributed to the deaths of another 800, she said.
Overseas research showed that Australia had a much higher mishap rate than the United States, which had yet to be explained.
Prof Briant said the national study used the same methodology as overseas, which would provide revealing comparisons.
Prof Davis, the project director, spends his time between Auckland and Christchurch medical schools.
NZPA NZH kn cw 18/02/99 21-37NZ
