Surgeons who lose patients on the operating table will be audited for the first time in Queensland in a move that is hoped "will help pick up earlier on someone like a Patel", experts say.
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The audit into surgery-related deaths will be conducted annually by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) and is designed to help improve surgery practice.
Interim results were released today.
"We're hoping the audit will help pick up earlier on someone like a Patel," a RACS spokeswoman said in reference to Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel who is faces three charges of manslaughter relating to alleged botched surgeries.
He is due to be extradited to Queensland to face trial in the coming days.
Surgeons working in Queensland's 14 biggest public hospitals, including the Princess Alexandra and the Royal Brisbane, will be audited but private surgeons have yet to sign up.
Interim results showed older people were at the greatest risk of not surviving an operation.
Past president of RACS' Queensland committee Dr Chris Perry said the first audit - which is only 50 per cent complete - revealed the average patient who died as a result of surgery in Queensland had a number of complicating risk factors.
They were aged about 79, underwent emergency surgery, had at least three other medical conditions - such a cardivascular, renal and respiratory disease - and had an "incapacitating systematic disease that was a constant threat to life", he said.
An estimated 1500 Queenslanders under the care of a surgeon die every year, with the rate equally split between public and private hospitals, Dr Perry said.
He stressed that figure included people with terminal illnesses.
It also included people who sustained fatal injuries who underwent surgery but could not be saved.
The audit will include the deaths of any patient who dies while under the care of a surgeon - including prior to, during and up to 30 days after surgeries - and procedures other than operations conducted by surgeons.
Dr Perry said one in three deaths in Queensland occurred in a hospital.
"Everyone dies eventually, and we are more likely to die in hospital than at home in bed or on the side of the road," he said.
Surgeries with the highest rate of death include large bowel surgeries, neurosurgery and vascular surgery, he said.
College president Professor Ian Gough said the audit information would be useful to surgeons to work out what went wrong and to prevent a repeat.
"The principal aim of the audit is to improve the quality of healthcare by providing education to surgeons through feedback," Professor Gough said.
"Experience has shown that systematic, independent audit can change practice for the better."
Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson said the published results will not identify individual surgeons.
The first state to implement an audit was Western Australia but all Australian states are now involved in the process.
Australia is one of the only countries in the world to conduct a nationwide audit into surgical deaths.