Ed Lines: Hospital event reports earn a tick

Hospitals - DHBs for that matter - hate negative publicity around serious incidents or deaths, and who can blame them.

But, publicly at least, they back the annual release of the Serious and Sentinel Events Report. I suspect that, privately, they don't like taking an annual hit of negative publicity.

DHBs must report serious incidents to the Ministry of Health, which are released as part of the annual Serious and Sentinel Events Report.

The purpose of publicising the incidents is to attempt to improve patient care and prevent similar incidents happening.

If we look at the Northland District Health Board incidents publicised since the inaugural Serious and Sentinel Events Report in 2007/2008, it would seem that the intent behind the public reporting is working.

There were no deaths in the 2010/2011 reporting time frame. Serious incidents, but no deaths.

That's not to say there will not be serious incidents involving death in next year's report. But in this 2010/2011 release, Northland has a similar number of incidents reported as Taranaki, a region comparative in size, and fewer incidents than Hawkes Bay or Bay of Plenty.

It's a decent achievement, given the ongoing challenge of finding medical staff in a region with remote medical outposts such as Northland.

Also perhaps, to balance the negative, we could find a way to highlight the lives saved each week in New Zealand's hospitals by the expertise of our health workers. This newspaper certainly delights in being able to publish the grateful letters to the editor that come across our desk after people have had positive experiences within the health system.

The fact that we choose to openly highlight the bad things that happen in our health system can only encourage open and honest communication, which has to be beneficial.

But a few more letters to the newspaper editors around the country would be nice.