Description:

Repository to collect community lab and radiology results and community pharmacy dispensing and combine with hospital held laboratory and radiology results. All the community labs around the country – only the Auckland region are captured in Testsafe

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.)? NHI linked
Volume of data (e.g. how many records) Since when? 97million lab/rad requests, 45 million dispensed scripts
Purpose and governance including ethics committee/patient consent mechanisms. Q: How do you get around ethics/privacy issues with your data sources? Esp. DHBs? System has a published privacy framework. http://www.testsafe.co.nz/downloads/TestSafe_Privacy_Framework_V3-1.pdf Governance group exists to manage the system and data access requests. User can opt-off display of data in the system.
Scope Regional
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? No
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 dictionary is proprietary to Sysmex NZ Ltd. Oracle database
Linked (or linkable) to other datasets within your organisation or across the Sector Yes
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? Only validated demographic data is loaded, errors are followed up and actioned. Data merging driven by NHI merge proicess.
Brief info about the systems and processes used to collect/manage data. Q: Where the data is collected, in what form, and accessibility? Data is loaded via HL7 interfaces. Pharmacy data is xml, then converted to HL7 messages
Data format, e.g., data structure, data types, and storage form (relational database, Excel, csv, etc.). Relational database, proprietary to Sysmex NZ Ltd
How well the data is structured, e.g. free text VS coded text VS pick-list (drop-down list) Sending organisations must meet certain standards before they can send in the data.
How quickly can the data be made available from time of request and how old is the data once it is made available HG: reseasonably quick - Researchers requiring identifiable data will usually need approval from an Ethics Committee and TestSafe governance group.