Queensland Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council (QLD PMC)
For 2009-2010 data sources included the QLD Perinatal Data Collection Form completed for all births, Form 9 Cause of Death Certificate and Form 9A Perinatal Supplement from Births, Deaths and Marriages. Since 1 April 2011 data may be captured using the PSANZ National Perinatal Death Clinical Audit Tool sent in by the senior clinician involved in each case.
The Queensland Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council (the Council) was reactivated in 2009 after five years of inactivity. The Council reports to the Minister for Health via the Clinical Access and Redesign Unit of Queensland Department of Health, and has a quality agenda which encompasses both public and private sectors. The Council is a gazetted quality committee under Sections 30 - 38 (Quality Assurance) of the Health Services Act 1991.
Its purposes are to:
• Collect and analyse clinical information regarding maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity in Queensland to identify state-wide and facility-specific trends
• Make recommendations to the QLD Minister for Health on standards and quality indicators of maternal and perinatal clinical care to enable health providers in Queensland to improve safety and quality
• Assist with the adoption of such standards in both public and private sectors.
Includes all live births and stillbirths of at least 20 weeks gestation and or at least 400 grams in weight. A perinatal death is defined as:
a) A child born alive at any gestation (one whose heart has beaten after it has been completely expelled or extracted from its mother) and subsequently dies within 28 days of birth (a neonatal death) or
b) A child not born alive (one whose heart has not beaten after it has been completely expelled or extracted from its mother) and is either not less than 20 weeks gestation or not less than 400g by weight at birth (a stillbirth).
The Statistical Collections and Integration Unit runs a series of input editing checks on the data to check unusual and incomplete data items. These checks include data entry checks, coding checks, validation queries for internal and external purposes and quarterly queries for unusual, ambiguous or incomplete data items. Additional quality checks to ensure ascertainment is complete are conducted continually using data linkage practices.
Data are available on request from the Statistical Reporting and Coordination Unit. The release of data is governed by patient confidentiality legislation in the
Public Health Act 2005. Requests for data should be made via email to
HlthStat@health.qld.gov.au or by phoning (07) 3708 5702. In some instances charges may apply.
Data are published in the
Perinatal Statistics reports, the latest of which is available online.
The PSANZ Perinatal Death Classification (PSANZ-PDC) and the PSANZ Neonatal Death Classification (PSANZ-NDC) have been developed by the PSANZ Perinatal Mortality Group (PSANZ-PMG). The PSANZ-PDC is used to identify the most important maternal and fetal factors leading to the chain of events resulting in the perinatal death. In addition, for neonatal deaths, the PSANZ-NDC identifies important factors in the neonatal period. The Council recognises that these PSANZ classifications, and ICD-10-AM based classifications mentioned in the next paragraphs, are complementary and not mutually exclusive.
The current version of ICD-10-AM is used for classifying diseases and health problems. For Perinatal morbidity this includes: Neonatal morbidity; reason for admission to nursery; and congenital anomalies.
The current version of ICD-10-AM is used to classify mortality. For perinatal mortality this includes: main cause of death in baby; main maternal cause of death in baby; other causes of death in baby; other maternal causes of death in baby and underlying cause of death where applicable. There are definitions of terms available in the explanatory notes of the ‘Perinatal Statistics’ report.