Clinical governance report SA - Clinical outcomes

Vermont Oxford Network

Vermont Oxford Network (VON) is a non-profit voluntary collaboration of international healthcare professionals based in the United States. The organisation is dedicated to improving the quality and safety of medical care for newborn infants and families through a coordinated programme of research, education and quality improvement projects.

VON specifically focuses on very low birth weight (VLBW) infants (below 1 501g) because of the difficulties involved in treating them.

All Netcare hospitals with neonatal units benchmark themselves against the international norms recommended by VON. At the time of preparing this report, Netcare’s overall results for 2008 were not available. However, the graph below compares certain 2008 outcome statistics for VLBW infants in neonatal units from two of our larger hospitals with the VON international statistics for 2008. These statistics confirm that our neonatal care compares well with the best in the world.

Outcome statistics for VLBW infants in neonatal units

Medibank Emergency Department outcomes based database

Medibank software has been installed in all Netcare’s emergency departments. The different modules in the Medibank system enable us to track a patient from an incident, through pre-hospital care and into the emergency unit, to ICU and through to discharge.

This registry of outcomes-based data allows for more effective monitoring of clinical outcomes and supports the management of patients admitted to Netcare’s emergency and trauma units.

Netcare is the largest SA group participating in the Medibank data collection system, which contains a large aggregation of emergency department data. There are currently 32 Netcare emergency units participating in the Medibank data collection process.

Data extracted from the database for the period 1 January 2006 and 31 May 2009 is indicated below.

Age distribution analysis

The graph below indicates that patients in the age group of 15 to 40 make the most visits to Netcare emergency departments.

Number of emergency department visits per age group

Average days in hospital

The following graph displays the average days spent in hospital classed by the reason for admission, reflecting only incidents that result in longer terms of hospitalisation.

Average days in hospital by reason for admission