Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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264. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 254 of 26 February 2014 and 265 of 27 February 2014, if hospitals were requested to amend the HIPE data which has erroneously been imputed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12631/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Further to previous PQs No's. 254 and 265, the Deputy will be aware of the report “Health Care Quality Indicators in the Irish Health System: Examining the Potential of Hospital Discharge Data using the Hospital Inpatient Enquiry System” and will be aware of the background. The report highlighted a number of variations with a small number of hospitals being identified as outliers for certain indicators. There are a lot of possible explanations for these variations including issues relating to quality of the data, for example coding issues, and quality of care. This information was reflected back, through the Quality and Patient Safety Directorate, HSE to the hospitals.

Hospitals, through the HSE, were offered the opportunity to review and correct their data. However the primary focus of this study was to look at the feasibility of these indicators and to progress to robust indicators for the future rather than carrying out a review of historical data.

In a drive to improve the quality of HIPE data the QPS Directorate, in conjunction with the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), also communicated in early 2012 with all HSE hospitals to state that each hospital should review the quality of their HIPE data with a particular focus on data for 2011. This communication also stated that the data for 2011 would be published in the future with individual hospitals identified.

The intention of my department is to publish a report on quality healthcare indicators derived from HIPE for the years 2011- 2013, at national, regional and hospital level later this year which will be based on corrected data and will identify hospitals. This report confirms the value of the HIPE system as a resource for the development of indicators of quality of care in our hospitals but it also shows that hospital data and the indicators need to be further refined before they can be used for this purpose.