Government is now publishing the number of serious reportable events that take place in hospitals.

Between Jan. 1 and March 31, there were 19 serious events. From April 1 to June 30, there were eight.

“This policy is about putting patient safety first,” said Health and Wellness Minister Leo Glavine. “Making this information public means we will all know what’s happening in our hospitals, and we can work together to improve patient safety.”

Health-care professionals strive to provide safe, quality health care to Nova Scotians, but with even the best systems in place, things can go wrong. Patient safety incidents are caused by a variety of factors including falls that result in death or disability.

Health-care professionals at district health authorities and the IWK Health Centre began providing information on patient safety incidents in late December. The information does not identify patients or providers.

“We will use this information to make changes to our health-care system that could prevent similar incidents in the future,” said Catherine Gaulton, vice-president of performance excellence for Capital Health.

Ms. Gaulton is also chair of the board of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, and the Nova Scotia Quality and Patient Safety Advisory Committee.

Government is working on a provincewide electronic system to track and report patient safety incidents. It is expected to be in operation by 2017.

In Nova Scotia each year, there are about 100,000 in-patient and day-visit surgeries, 665,000 emergency room visits, 100,000 ground- and air-ambulance transports, and more than a million diagnostic imaging tests.

To view the most recent serious events numbers, visit http://novascotia.ca/dhw/qps/serious-reportable-events.asp .

Source: Release