Improve Mortality Rates

How Do We Improve NHS Trusts’ Mortality Rates?

Whilst the traditional routes of examining care received by deceased patients and the recording of this care are fundamental to identifying potential improvements in treatment and pathways, if a Trust is not proactively validating its coded data for all patients prior to that data leaving the organisation, and the data does not reflect the true complexity of its patients, the total number of patients expected to die can go under-reported and drive an inaccurate mortality outlier alert.

maxwell stanley introduce proactive validation of activity data directly affecting mortality rates through an in-month targeted review of coded data, with coding amended prior to freeze, ensuring all relevant patient comorbidities and procedure complexities are captured.

The process also includes our Clinician Validation service to identify and correct incomplete and inaccurate clinical documentation and ensure the patient conditions are appropriately recorded at source. Additional data quality issues are also routinely addressed where appropriate, such as reviewing signs and symptoms coding and recording of palliative care, all of which will also affect the Trust’s mortality rates.