The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The preliminary results of the Surgical Outcomes Monitoring and Improvement Programme (SOMIP) in 2017 are now available, while the detailed data are being validated and analysed, the Hospital Authority (HA) spokesperson said today (November 22).
 
     The HA introduced the SOMIP in 2008 to collect and analyse the clinical data of 17 public hospital surgical departments as an ongoing quality improvement initiative in surgical services.
 
     The HA spokesperson said the preliminary overall results this year were encouraging. "The crude mortality rate of ultra-major and major surgical operations has persistently declined over the past years, recording 1.3 per cent this year as compared with 1.5 per cent last year. At the same time, the 30-day crude mortality rates of elective and emergency surgeries have dropped to 0.3 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, and both figures are record lows since the commencement of the programme," the spokesman said.
 
     "It is also the first year that there was no underperforming hospital in elective surgeries. The preliminary findings in emergency surgeries this year indicated that Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Tseung Kwan O Hospital outperformed other public hospitals in terms of post-operative 30-day mortality, while North District Hospital and Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital compared unfavourably with other HA hospitals."
 
     The spokesperson added, "The SOMIP team will visit the hospitals concerned in the coming months to look into the local situation with the department staff. Multilevel analysis will also be conducted to reaffirm the findings, ascertain possible causes and explore directions for improvement."
 
     The HA will release the complete report with the full set of data and analysis in January 2018 to healthcare professionals for their reference and follow-up. The results will be shared and discussed during the annual forum.

Ends/Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Issued at HKT 16:28

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