Description:

Used to publish pharmaceutical subsidy decisions to the health sector

Additional information:

Have_(encrypted)_NHI No
Personally identifiable (e.g. linked to NHI numbers) and longitudinal or aggregated (e.g. for planning, clinical research etc.)? No
Volume of data (e.g. how many records) Since when? Chemicals: 811, Formulations: 1873, Brands: 2139, Packs: 2242
Scope National
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? Info about the health conditions people have (e.g. diagnosis data)? No. Cost/price data? Yes
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.) XML with Schema at http://www.pharmac.govt.nz/2006/07/Schedule.xsd
Linked (or linkable) to other datasets within your organisation or across the Sector Yes - Pharmacode, NZULM
How often does this data set get updated? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly? Yearly? Monthly
Indication of data quality (e.g. missing values, duplications, inconsistencies etc.). Q: Audits? How do you ensure the data is valid and correct? Very high Quality assured by database integrity, internal and external proofing, and direct use in claiming pharmaceutical subsidies
Brief info about the systems and processes used to collect/manage data. Q: Where the data is collected, in what form, and accessibility? Pharmac Board minutes, notification of product changes (NOPC) from suppliers, Pharmacode product identifiers from the Pharmacy Guild
Data format, e.g., data structure, data types, and storage form (relational database, Excel, csv, etc.). XML, also avalable as (deprecated) MSAccess file
How well the data is structured, e.g. free text VS coded text VS pick-list (drop-down list) Highly structured: textural sections such as restrictions and guidelines encoded as XHTML and mathML
How quickly can the data be made available from time of request and how old is the data once it is made available Freely avaliable from http://www.pharmac.govt.nz/schedule/archive/ under Creative Commons licence