USEFULNESS OF THE DATA COLLECTED BY THE NATIONAL PERINATAL INFORMATION SYSTEM OF SLOVENIA FOR QUALITY CONTROL IN PERINATOLOGY

Abstract

Bacground: The quality of work has been increasingly given more emphasis in all areas of life, the health care being no exception. Without appropriate measures or indicators of health care outcomes, a health care system cannot be improved. The results of quality of work are of utmost importance as they serve as the basis for various comparisons, e.g.among units, department, individual doctors. The aim of this analysis was to establish the results of work in tertiary and secondary centres, and with individual doctors, and compare them in order to approve the good ones and to find those that need be improved. Methods: The analysis involved 32 parameters concerning the results of work, the same parameters as used elsewhere in Europe, with all deliveries and newborns in Slovenia in the time period 2003–2007. We established the differences in the work of tertiary and secondary centres and used them in various comparisons. Results: We found no significant differences among the Slovene maternity hospitals in the incidence of eclampsia during labour, hysterectomy and in the incidence of lethal malformations among early neonatal deaths. We did find numerous significant differences in the manage- ment of labour, termination of labour and in the newborn's condition after birth. Conclusions: Slovenian perinatal information system is unique in Europe for as long as 22 years it has enabled a steady gathering of a large number of perinatal data for every woman who has given birth in Slovenia. Annual analyses that are done on the basis of the collected data for selected quality indicators within the project »Quality of Health Care in Slovenia« make it possible for every maternity hospital in Slovenia or every obstetrician to get an insight into the quality of their work and to compare it with the work of other maternity departments and individual doctors. The system gives the professional bodies and individual doctors an opportunity to improve the results of their professional work which deviate negatively from Slovenian standards