The first quarterly reports showing how well district health boards are performing against six national health targets will be published today - but some of the data may not be accurate.
The material will allow comparison of boards' progress in achieving shorter stays in emergency departments, improved access to elective surgery, shorter cancer treatment waiting times, immunisation coverage, better help for smokers to quit, and improved diabetes and cardiovascular services.
While the Ministry of Health has set specific national targets in these areas, each district health board has had to reach agreement with the ministry on the level to be reached this year.
In Otago, for instance, the aim is to have 80% of emergency department patients admitted, discharged or transferred within six hours, although the national target is 95% of patients.
However, with immunisation rates, where the national requirement this year is to have 85% of 2-year-olds fully vaccinated by next July, Otago expects to exceed the target with 92% coverage.
In an email response to questions raised by the Otago Daily Times about the accuracy of the information to be published today, acting deputy director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said results supplied by the boards were treated as accurate unless there was a clear reason to question them.
Where data was sourced by the ministry from national information collections, the boards had an opportunity to review and comment on the data before it was published.
There were recognised data issues for some targets, particularly where information was being collected for the first time.
This data would still provide the best available picture of progress and it was expected data quality would improve in future.
With regard to the emergency department target, Dr Bloomfield said it was expected many boards would take up to two years to achieve this.
He acknowledged there could be variations in methods of data collection involving this target and some reporting issues had been anticipated.
A few boards had been concerned about the quality of their information and were working to resolve this.
In this year's district annual plan, the Otago board said treatment of about a quarter of emergency department patients would fall outside the six-hour treatment time.
Last year, the hospital conducted a pilot project using lean-thinking methods to try to improve patient flow through the department, but the clinical leader of that project, Dr Tim Kerruish, considered the gains made would be limited unless similar work was done in the rest of the hospital.
The information to be published today will cover the quarter to the end of September.
Last week, the Ministry established a special web page on emergency departments and work being done around the country to shorten the length of patient stays.
Otago District Health Board surgeon and intensive care specialist Mike Hunter is one of the 16 members of the group providing advice.
