Southern Health, who manages Casey Hospital, has come under fire following claims of data mismanagement and “fudging figures” at the Dandenong Hospital.By Melissa Meehan
SOUTHERN Health has been embroiled in the manipulation of hospital figures debacle.
Southern Health, which manages Casey Hospital, Dandenong Hospital and Monash Medical Centre, has come under fire from a doctor, who previously worked at two of these places.
Dr Richard Cathie, who worked at the Dandenong Hospital and Monash Medical Centre, claimed political pressures forced hospitals to “fudge figures” to gain bonuses. He told ABC Radio hospitals such as Dandenong were “starving for funds and resources” and “fudged” figures to “reach the bonus payments associated with performance indicators”.
But a spokeswoman for Southern Health dismissed that waiting list figures were deliberately altered but admitted there were inaccuracies in compiling and reporting data of the Dandenong Hospital.
The “fudge figures” claims follow the release of the Auditor General’s report, Access to Public Hospitals: Measuring Performance.
The report highlighted four Victorian hospitals, including Dandenong Hospital, which was found to have significant problems in reporting hospital performance. It found data inaccuracies, data manipulation and poor quality control processes.
Dr Cathie was a member of Southern Health’s senior emergency medical staff at Dandenong for five years and before that was at the Monash Medical Centre from where he resigned in January 2009. Dr Cathie said many patients who stayed in the Dandenong emergency department for more than 24 hours were not recorded as staying for that amount of time.
“That’s a black box to me… Those pieces of information that would cost the hospital bonus payments to disappear,” he said.
Southern Health however has strongly denied Dr Cathie’s claims.
“No data is inappropriately manipulated at Southern Health, and the Auditor General’s report did not find any evidence of inappropriate manipulation of data at Dandenong Hospital,” the spokeswoman said.
“The Emergency Department patient management system, Symphony, tightly controls security, compliance and monitoring of all data in real time ,” she said.
“Southern Health has also developed an internal audit program to ensure that accurate data is provided ,” she said.
