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Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM)

VASM is a collaboration between the Victorian Government's Department of Health, Safer Care Victoria and RACS. VASM is funded by the Victorian Department of Health, and managed by RACS.

The Victorian Audit of Surgical Mortality (VASM) seeks to review all deaths associated with surgical care.

VASM is a collaboration between the Victorian Government's Department of Health and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. The VASM project is funded by the Victorian Department of Health. The VASM Management Committee meets every two months and oversees the project which constitutes an invaluable foundation to the running and success of the audit program. The College manages VASM through its Melbourne office.  

All surgery carries some risk and it is an unfortunate reality that sometimes patients do not survive surgery, or die after having a surgical procedure. The majority of these deaths are not preventable and occur despite surgery to overcome a life threatening condition. In some instances however death is an unexpected outcome of surgery for a condition that is not life threatening. It is especially important that the issues surrounding death in the latter group are studied to see if similar adverse outcomes can be prevented.