ACC Treatment Safety Update March 2021

on 12 March

Welcome to the March 2021 edition of ACC’s Treatment Safety update

Treatment injury information coming to HQSC dashboards

We’re working with the Health Quality and Safety Commission to make some of our latest treatment injury information available via its health system quality dashboard, alongside other key health sector quality measures.

Five of our data measures have been made available to District Health Board (DHB) Chief Executives, Chief Medical Officers and Quality and Risk Managers via a test dashboard. It breaks down safety measures by DHB and shows how treatment injury rates are changing over time, and how DHBs compare to each other and the national rate.

Treatment injury cover for COVID-19 vaccination injuries

We can provide treatment and support for injuries caused by COVID-19 vaccination if the criteria for treatment injury are met. This means there’s a physical injury caused by the vaccination, that’s not a necessary part or ordinary consequence of the treatment.

For example, inflammation around the site of the injection is common with COVID-19 vaccination (an ordinary consequence) and is unlikely to be covered. Infections (such as cellulitis or septic arthritis) due to the vaccination, and anaphylaxis resulting in injury are not ordinary consequences and are likely to be covered.

To make a treatment injury claim for a patient please complete an ACC2152 treatment injury claim form as well as an electronic or manual ACC45 injury claim form.

To help with our reporting, we need to know the COVID-19 vaccine brand name and vaccination dose number (i.e. dose one or two). This can be noted:

on the ACC45: please tick the treatment injury box, identify this as an adverse event in the drop-down menu and then enter the COVID-19 vaccine brand name and vaccination dose number in the open comments section
on the ACC2152: in Section 3 - Treatment claimed to have caused the injury.

More information about lodging a treatment injury claim is available on our website and in our treatment injury claim lodgement guide.

To find out more please contact us on 0800 222 070 or email providerhelp@acc.co.nz

Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention

Know Your IV Lines showing early signs of success in South Canterbury

Early signs of success are being seen at South Canterbury DHB following the implementation of our Know Your IV Lines programme late last year, with infection rates decreasing after just a few months.
“We heard about the Know Your IV Lines programme at ACC’s regional forum and were keen to look at how we could use it,” says Angie Foster, Infection Prevention and Control Nurse at South Canterbury DHB.

Pressure injury prevention and management

Reviewing pressure injury education

We’re committed to developing educational resources with our health sector partners to help reduce the impact of pressure injuries in New Zealand. We’ll soon begin surveying DHBs about educational resources already in use to better understand what additional resources may need to be developed. We also hope to identify how we can share existing resources across the sector.

Look out for the survey later in March.

Neonatal Encephalopathy

Fetal Heart Monitoring training on the way

We are currently selecting a partner to assist the multi-disciplinary working group in the co-design and development of a fetal monitoring education programme.

The programme will complement the existing clinical training, making it more accessible, with guidance on human factors and what to do next if things don’t seem right.

The co-design is scheduled to commence during March, with package being rolled out from mid-2021.

Improving adverse event reporting

We’re partnering with four healthcare facilities to assess their adverse event review processes, help them understand how their processes are working, and identify opportunities for improvement. We’ve contracted MartinJenkins to provide process design expertise to support this work.

New cover guidance for abdominal wall hernia surgical mesh injuries

We recently finalised new cover guidance for abdominal wall hernia surgical mesh injuries. This guide to ACC cover will help you understand whether a patient is likely to be covered by ACC for these injuries. The cover guidance is based on scientific research and expert best practice in the use of surgical synthetic mesh and was developed in collaboration with New Zealand representatives of the New Zealand Association of General Surgeons.

To order hard copies of our resources email us at treatmentsafety@acc.co.nz

www.acc.co.nz

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