First annual update on increasing transparency in New Zealand health care

This is the first annual update from the Ministry of Health and Health Quality & Safety Commission on increasing transparency in New Zealand health care. This update is in response to the recommendation in Ombudsman Professor Ron Paterson’s June 2016 ruling on a complaint by Martin Johnston of the New Zealand Herald:¹

“that the Ministry of Health and Health Quality & Safety Commission work together to provide a publicly available, annual update (commencing in June 2017) on the sector’s progress towards, in five years (ie, by June 2021), the selection, development and public reporting of a range of quality of care measures (including outcomes data) across specialties that:¹

• are meaningful to health care consumers; 
• are meaningful to the clinicians who provide their care; 
• are meaningfully attributable to the clinicians or service providing that care; and
• increase the availability of information to the people of New Zealand.”

^{1. Office of the Ombudsman. Request for Complications data by named cardiothoracic surgeon and neurosurgeon. Case numbers 402136/402138/402140/402142/402144. 2016. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/system/paperclip/document_files/document_files/1635/original/402136_etc_-_request_for_surgical_complications_data.pdf?1467187036 (accessed 9 June 2017)}