Hospitals will be mandated to submit reports on all clinical blunders regardless of their severity under stringent guidelines announced yesterday.Taking action after an alarming spike in hospital errors, the Hospital Authority has also announced the creation of a central committee to decide on disciplinary action against negligent staff.
Public hospitals will be required to disclose blunders posing risks to patients even if they had not caused actual harm.
Citing the baby mix-up case as an example, the authority's quality and safety director Leung Pak-yin said: "It has to be reported to the head office in the future even if the babies have been returned to their natural parents before they are discharged from hospital."
The proposals also call for a 50-member core team to be established to review major incidents. The team will be made up of senior clinicians, nurses and allied health staff from all hospital clusters, as well as lay members from the hospital governing committees.
Leung said the transparency, consistency and impartiality of future investigations will improve if coordinated and conducted by the head office instead of individual hospitals or clusters.
The authority is also suggesting a peer review and patient feedback system to regularly review and simplify hospital practices and protocols, such as patient admission and discharge, clinical handover, and medication management.
A central mechanism to review all cases is also in the pipeline.
The authority is also set to adopt advanced technology such as 2D barcode to reduce human error in patient identification and the handling of blood specimen. Officials also plan to explore radio- frequency identification on corpses.
However lawmaker (medical sector) Leung Ka-lau expressed doubts over whether the proposals would be enough to prevent accidents in the future.
Instead of imposing more responsibilities on staff, the authority should increase manpower to double-check high- risk procedures, Leung said.
"It may end in junior staff refusing to conduct any procedures which carry even minimal risks and wait for the supervisors or doctors to do such work," he said. "All these [measures] would slow down operation and patients will be the ones to suffer."
