Adverse Event Reporting Under Scrutiny as NZ Health Fails to Resume and US States Target Medical Spas

Pressure is mounting on adverse event reporting in healthcare and cosmetic medicine, with New Zealand’s health agency still failing to publish national harm summaries a year after being ordered to restart, while U.S. states Arizona and Florida are advancing legislation to require serious adverse event reporting by medical spas. In New Zealand, the Ombudsman instructed Health NZ in July 2025 to resume its axed reports of serious and fatal healthcare harm, following complaints that the agency had refused to release serious event summaries despite a 2007 ruling that the information should be public. Annual reports were quietly discontinued in 2021 as part of a national policy revamp, and when summaries were again requested in May 2024, Health NZ refused to provide them. The Ombudsman found that refusal unreasonable and gave Health NZ 12 months to devise a new harm reporting system, but no national report has yet been published. Health NZ’s national chief quality and patient safety said a report for incidents between July 1 and December 31, 2025, will come by year’s end.

In the United States, Arizona introduced HB 4047 on February 10, 2026, requiring medical spas that handle prescription medications to obtain a license from the State Board of Pharmacy and to notify the Board within five business days after a serious adverse event. The bill defines serious adverse events as death, life-threatening events, hospitalization, persistent or significant incapacity, congenital abnormality or birth defect, or any event requiring medical or surgical intervention. Florida’s SB 1728/HB 1429, “The Medical Spa Prescription Drug Oversight Act,” introduced in January 2026, contains similar provisions, including licensing, a designated responsible person, inspections, public databases, and serious adverse event reporting. If passed, Florida’s law would take effect July 1, 2026.