Comparison of the Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality with coronial cause of death

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM) is designed to improve the level of patient care by educating surgeons of areas for improvement in patient management during a surgical admission. Coronial data obtained via the National Coronial Information System were used as an independent method to validate the cause of death as determined by the treating surgeon. METHOD: The audit prospectively collected 4905 cases that underwent peer assessment and 842 (17%) received an in-depth second-line assessment of which 200 (24%) also underwent a coronial review. Using the coronial assessment as the reference standard, retrospective comparison of coronial diagnoses compared with the au..