The Chief Minister on the health statistics scandal. Too little too late.

From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-05/new-role-to-oversee-hospital-data/4112716?section=act
“New role to oversee hospital data”

Do we really need to appoint a “director of data integrity”?
Is more bureaucracy really the best solution to this problem?
1. Focus on fixing the root cause – get emergency departments staffed adequately, and with the right tools and processes to do their job efficiently so that there is no need to fudge the data.
2. Make sure that we have adequate whistleblowing protections so that people can bring these problems to light without fear of persecution.
3. Fix the executive culture that enabled this problem to occur at all.

Am I missing anything here?

devils_advocate said :

OP: “It is important to note that this is an issue about statistics and computer systems, not patient care.”

Um, since when is the amount of time that a patient has to wait to get care not a patient care issue? Health care in a hospital is not a service where consumers derive anticipation utility – timeliness is an important component of the quality of the care. I’m pretty sure I want the medical assistance when I’m having the heart attack, not when it’s time to harvest the organs.

For bonus points, the “we can’t meet the predetermined performance benchmarks, so instead we will ‘broaden’ (i.e. dilute) those benchmarks. Because heaven forfend we actually work towards the original idea of shortening the waiting times. Kthnxbai.”

I think you might be missing the point somewhat. Waiting times ARE a patient care issue. The dodgy reporting of waiting time data, however, had no impact whatsoever on the actual waiting times experienced by the patients in question. The data, accurate, altered, or otherwise, sitting in a computer and various reports to government after the fact, have nothing to do with the quality of those patients’ care in ED.

OP: “It is important to note that this is an issue about statistics and computer systems, not patient care.”

Um, since when is the amount of time that a patient has to wait to get care not a patient care issue? Health care in a hospital is not a service where consumers derive anticipation utility – timeliness is an important component of the quality of the care. I’m pretty sure I want the medical assistance when I’m having the heart attack, not when it’s time to harvest the organs.

For bonus points, the “we can’t meet the predetermined performance benchmarks, so instead we will ‘broaden’ (i.e. dilute) those benchmarks. Because heaven forfend we actually work towards the original idea of shortening the waiting times. Kthnxbai.”

JerryJohnson said :

Ian said :

banco said :

If the canberra times either can’t establish who the unnamed executive is or if they know who it is but won’t print their name they deserve to go under.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. How many layers of executives does the hospital have? 3-4? How many people in that group? And Katy Gallagher let slip in her interview on the ABC news that it was a “she”. Find an org chart, figure out who is likely to have been responsible for ED statistics and bingo, you have it.

Then fire them and the executives they report to for allowing such slack processes to exist and continue for so long.

That’s right let us turn to vigilantly tactics. What could possibly go wrong?

Get off your high horse! Where did I advocate vigilante tactics? All I’m saying is it should have been very easy to figure out the name if anyone bothered with a bit of basic research.

The firing is for the director-general of Health and Minister of course. But as they fall in the firing line for firing its hard to see anyone taking a bullet for this other than the one guilty executive/scapegoat.

The real issue here is not the culture that creates the pressure to improve the figures – that is well-known and the blame is shared by everyone. The real issue is the fact that the culture within at least the health directorate is such that they felt that doctoring the figures was an appropriate response or an action that they felt there was a reasonable chance that such tampering would not be discovered, or if it was, any disciplinary action would not be so serious as to act as sufficient deterrent to prevent the doctoring in the first place.

Some public servant has changed the numbers, and now they’re making sure it can’t happen again. Let’s spend this money on getting more nurses and doctors instead.

I actually find the references to Zed in this thread hilarious, as the only people who have tried to turn this into a scandal are the people justifying what Zed did.

Ian said :

banco said :

If the canberra times either can’t establish who the unnamed executive is or if they know who it is but won’t print their name they deserve to go under.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. How many layers of executives does the hospital have? 3-4? How many people in that group? And Katy Gallagher let slip in her interview on the ABC news that it was a “she”. Find an org chart, figure out who is likely to have been responsible for ED statistics and bingo, you have it.

Then fire them and the executives they report to for allowing such slack processes to exist and continue for so long.

That’s right let us turn to vigilantly tactics. What could possibly go wrong?

banco said :

If the canberra times either can’t establish who the unnamed executive is or if they know who it is but won’t print their name they deserve to go under.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. How many layers of executives does the hospital have? 3-4? How many people in that group? And Katy Gallagher let slip in her interview on the ABC news that it was a “she”. Find an org chart, figure out who is likely to have been responsible for ED statistics and bingo, you have it.

Then fire them and the executives they report to for allowing such slack processes to exist and continue for so long.

gooterz said :

As an aside..

If they used generic logins, what other fraud happened!

I’ll tell you what has happened at the federal medical data entry level – someone of my acquaintance was employed, about seven years ago when under 16, by a parent connected with her Sydney school – who was recruiting the kids from among her own child’s schoolfriends to do data entry for her medical company. Said “still-child” was keying private medical information into an online database from home, on a standard, probably uncrypted internet connection, for $14 an hour. I don’t know much about it, except that it spooked me at the time, and was unquestionably dodgy, if not illegal.

As an aside..

If they used generic logins, what other fraud happened! I wont believe that the waiting times are the only thing that was altered.
11k records of one type.. what are the numbers for the others. Surely something more profitable was more appealing!