FAQs

Your participation in VASM is a requirement if you are a surgeon in an operative based practice, have a surgical death and an audit of surgical mortality is available in your hospital. Complete and submit your participation form to the audit office.

VASM audits all mortalities where a surgeon was responsible for, or had significant involvement in, the care of a patient. This includes patients who were:

• admitted under the care of a surgeon or gynaecologist, regardless of whether an operation occurred, or
• admitted under the care of another unit, but an operation was performed by a surgeon or gynaecologist.

No, all surgeons participating in the audit can volunteer to be either first or second-line assessors. To become an assessor, complete and submit an assessor form to the audit office.

Yes, a Guideline for Assessors (PDF 13.26MB) document has been produced to provide guidelines for assessors. 

Yes, the VASM process is covered by the Commonwealth Qualified Privilege agreement. All data is securely stored at VASM.

VASM will be notified by the hospital's medical records department or the Coroner's Office. Alternatively, surgeons may notify VASM directly of a death of a patient under their care via Fellows Interface.

Yes, the medical records can be retrieved by contacting the medical records department at the relevant hospital.

Data is submitted to VASM via the Fellows Interface portal. Please contact our office if you need help setting up a profile.

Please contact the VASM Project Manager.