Learning from complaints to the Health and Disability Commission Office: A case study into indicators of deterioration in aged residential care organisations in New Zealand.

Trends in Health and Disability complaints across multiple organisations can become a powerful tool for widespread quality improvement. This review highlights that the speed of deterioration triggered many complaints, especially in cases of sepsis which is possibly overlooked as a contributing problem. Also, that nutrition/hydration was indicated in many complaints and is an important condition-indicator. Trends in complaints are not generalisable to all large organisations; however, they can be applied to individual facilities.