State mandates ‘death audit’; hosps to share data every week

Kolkata: The state Health department has issued a circular mandating ‘death audit’ of victims in fatal road accident cases and the hospitals will have to share the details of the deceased and the nature of accidents with the department.

One of the main objectives of the move is to check road accidents after carrying out detailed research on them and analysing related data.

All the hospitals in the districts have been asked to submit a ‘death report’ of each fatal road accident to the chief medical officer of health (CMOHs) on Monday every week. Information relating to accidents will have to be uploaded on a specified portal.

All the hospitals will have to furnish data relating to the admission of the accident victims, mode of treatment, cause of death of accident victims. The hospitals have also been asked to submit details of those accident victims who have been cured and released from the hospitals, besides the nature of treatment and duration of their stay at the

hospitals. It was learnt that senior Health department officials held a meeting with the CMoHs in the districts and the officials from various hospitals and medical colleges last week when the hospital authorities have been asked to provide data every week.

A senior Health department official said that if a ‘death audit’ is carried out in case of fatal road accidents and the data are examined it will help the state government check future road accidents.

It will also be seen which are the areas where the accidents are taking place on a regular basis, which vehicles are mostly causing road accidents, nature of injuries of the victims, if the nearby hospitals have specialist doctors to treat the injured victims.

These data which will be collected from the districts may be shared with the Urban Development department as well.