Description:

They don’t actually collect any data but do analyses, mostly clinical audit/performance type, at individual GP practices. So no data is taken outside the practices and aggregated. They have a new product called CareInsight, with appropriate consent, that links to GP practices, hospitals, labs and pharmacies and provide a virtual care record. Again no data is taken outside individual steward organisation. Currently run in over 200 practices, 4-5 DHB regions and pharms.

Additional information:

Have_(encrypted)_NHI Yes
Personally identifiable (e.g. linked to NHI numbers) and longitudinal or aggregated (e.g. for planning, clinical research etc.)? Yes - all NHI but do data are aggregated.
Volume of data (e.g. how many records) Since when? potentially a large portion of population
Purpose and governance including ethics committee/patient consent mechanisms. Q: How do you get around ethics/privacy issues with your data sources? Esp. DHBs? requires patient consent and agreements with each steward organisation. Currently no data is aggregated.
Scope Provider
Does the data contain diagnoses and clinical outcomes? Does the data contain procedures, device information and medication for therapy? Does this data set have cost / price data? Yes - a virtual health record
Presence of Data dictionary? Column headings in Excel or any kind of data model if residing in a relational database (e.g. Access, SQL Server, Oracle etc.) Data definition of each connected data source is present and also the final output. It is not public and owned by HealthLink and sent to HISO for potential standardisation
Linked (or linkable) to other datasets within your organisation or across the Sector Yes - they have been asked to link to National Collections
How often does this data set get updated? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly? Yearly? real-time
Indication of data quality (e.g. missing values, duplications, inconsistencies etc.). Q: Audits? How do you ensure the data is valid and correct? this is a virtual record - as good as source data (PMS, labs, DHBs and pharms)
Brief info about the systems and processes used to collect/manage data. Q: Where the data is collected, in what form, and accessibility? They use standard messaging and also direct connection to databases. No new data is collected.
Data format, e.g., data structure, data types, and storage form (relational database, Excel, csv, etc.). as per source data - no storage
How well the data is structured, e.g. free text VS coded text VS pick-list (drop-down list) as per source data