Health database

Now I always thought that in our 'world class' health system, that under ISO quality assurance practices a measuring point (KPI in technical jargon) might have already been established to note and record the number of deaths in our hospitals along with the cause.

A so called 'client' popping their clogs whilst under the direct care of our eminent surgeons is a KPI that should have some extremely rigourous follow up procedure to establish a cause of failure. Taking your last gasp on the table would be in my book an indication of some sort of serious failure, but Ms Kedgely tells us that a database is needed to 'help reduce the high rate of death and disability caused by hospital error' which occurs often - nice to know the public health service client is in good hands!

It is also nice to know that some bottom feeder swimming in the health pond needs another 1/2 mil or so to set up such a database and record what might be possibly a few deaths each year - or is it a bloody sight more that Pete the health man has not told us about? Maybe he has been gilding the lily over our world class system!

Could I suggest for $1K that Mr Gates could sell them a gold plated copy of MS Access which more than suffice! Might even set it up for them! Alternatively the good people over at OpenOffice will let you have a database at no cost, but it is a 100 Meg download. Just how many records are we talking abut here - even SQL Server does not cost that much, hell, one of the overpaid surgeons could afford a licensed copy of that!

Ms Kedgely, just because your mate Sue has almost got her bill through, it does not mean that every hare-brained thought that the Greens might have is worth further thought or action, let alone spending money on it.