Patients must be given access to the data 'across specialties', and yearly updates on progress. Photo / Getty Images
Patients must be given access to the data 'across specialties', and yearly updates on progress. Photo / Getty Images
Patients may be able to check their surgeons' safety records before going under the knife under new reporting systems to be put in place within five years.
After inquiries by the Herald, health authorities have been put on notice to start publicly reporting patient death rates and other "outcomes" data of public hospital doctors or the units they work in by 2021.
Ombudsman Ron Paterson has told the Health Ministry patients must be given access to the data "across specialties" by then, and yearly updates on progress were required.
In Britain patients can look up the National Health Service website for these kinds of doctor ratings and in the United States the investigative website ProPublica has published a controversial Surgeon Scorecard comparing about 17,000 US doctors' individual complication rates in a variety of procedures.