The ACT Opposition says an independent inquiry should be launched into both of the ACT's hospital emergency departments after an anonymous allegation was made about changes to performance results at Calvary Public Hospital.
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Calvary chief executive Ray Dennis rejected the suggestion that results from his emergency department had been doctored, but said some data had to be corrected due to teething problems with computer software that was installed earlier this year.
An administrator at the Canberra Hospital was stood down at the weekend after admitting responsibility for changes to emergency department data that improved the Woden hospital's performance results.
Opposition Health spokesman Jeremy Hanson said yesterday that he had received an anonymous email that raised concerns about performance data from Calvary's emergency department.
The email said: ''I thought you would be keen to know that ACT Health have Calvary Emergency Department reviewing their seen times for all category 4 patients over the past two months in order to edit the doctor seen times and improve how the performance looks in the reports''.
''Interesting use of health care professional's time/skill to review patient notes to edit previous data.''
Mr Hanson said a ''truly independent'' investigation into the Canberra and Calvary emergency departments was required.
''Clearly there are people in the community, and I don't know who they are … who have genuine concerns that emergency department results are being doctored at Calvary,'' he said.
''Without a broadening of the scope to investigate Calvary Hospital, then the stench will remain. The same stench that now hangs over the Canberra Hospital will be there at Calvary, and that's unacceptable.''
Mr Hanson said he received the email last Wednesday and had planned to raise it in the assembly, but decided to go public with his concerns sooner after hearing about the Canberra Hospital issue.
Mr Dennis said the Bruce hospital had replaced its emergency department software with Emergency Department Information Systems in mid-January.
He said that during the implementation stage, some data had appeared to be incorrect.
''We then identified that there were some 'stop clocking' moments that hadn't occurred in the system,'' he said.
''We went back and made those changes and as a result we then had to go back and review our data.''
The Canberra Hospital had delayed an upgrade of its EDIS software until the Calvary issues had been fully resolved.
Forensic auditors were reviewing the Canberra Hospital emergency department data in the wake of the tampering revelation.
A broader Health Directorate data integrity audit would be carried out by external investigators.
Health director-general Peggy Brown said the terms of reference for the audit were being discussed with the federal Health Department and Ageing, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the independent chair of ACT Health's audit and risk management committee.
Dr Brown had also invited Auditor-General Maxine Cooper to review the terms of reference.
Dr Brown said the Government had not attempted to try and hide the fact that emergency department performance data manipulation had been detected at the Canberra Hospital.
